
Glass . 

Book 







THE BIBLE 



AND 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT, 



IN A 



COURSE OF LECTURES, 



BY 



J. M. MATHEWS, D. D. 



*' He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God." 

2 Samuel, 23 : 3. 



NEW-YORK : 

ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 

285 BROADWAY. 



1851. 



■B^* 

^ ^ 



Entered according to Act of Conjrress, in the year of our Lord 1350, by Rev. 
J. M. Mathews, D. I), in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the 
Southern District of New-York. 



Printed and Stereotyped 

BY D FANSIIAW, 

35 Ann, comer of Nussau-st. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 



LECTURE II. 

CIVIL GOVERNMENT, AS ORDAINED IN THE COMMONWEALTH 
OF THE HEBREWS. 



LECTURE III. 

INFLUENCE OF EMIGRATION ON NATIONAL CHARACTER. 



LECTURE IV. 

GENERAL AND SOUND EDUCATION INDISPENSABLE TO CIVIL 
FREEDOM. 



LECTURE V. 

AGRICULTURE AS AN AUXILIARY TO CIVIL FREEDOM. 



PREFACE 



It was my original intention not to publish 
the following Lectures until they should appear 
as a part of the entire work on the connec- 
tion between Science and Religion, which I 
am engaged in preparing. But I have been 
induced to change my purpose- They were 
delivered at the city of Washington in the 
early part of 1848, when the news reached this 
country apprising us of the commotions in Eu- 
rope which have since. formed a topic of absorb- 
ing interest to all intelligent observers of the 
times. The views which I have endeavored to 
illustrate on the relations of Civil Government 
to the Holy Scriptures, are thought to have an 
important bearing on the political revolutions 
then and still in progress ; and, out of defer- 
ence to the request of many for whose judg- 
ment and wishes I feel a high respect, I have 



P RE FACE. 



decided to publish thern in a volume by them- 
selves. The circumstance of their having been 
delivered in the Capitol, before an audience 
composed chiefly of those who occupied the 
high places of authority in the land, may serve 
to show why I have made so frequent a refer- 
ence to the privileges and responsibilities of 
our own country. 

The publication of these Lectures in a 
separate volume, has afforded the more space 
for the notes which I have appended to them, 
and which will be acceptable to readers who 
may not have at hand all the authorities from 
which they are selected. There is one class of 
works to which I have referred, not only with 
a frequency but with a confidence, which some 
readers may be inclined to disapprove. I refer 
to the leading Periodicals of the Press, as the 
American and Foreign Quarterlies. On many 
subjects, especially such as are of high inter- 
est to the public welfare at the present time, 
there is no better authority extant. A new 
era in authorship has arisen. The generations 
of folios have in a great measure passed away. 
These "sons of Anak" no longer weigh down 
the shelves of libraries, or burden the arms of 



PREFACE, 



readers, as in former times. In their stead has 
arisen a generation of duodecimos and octavos, 
sometimes springing from the bowels of their 
unwieldy ancestors, and again coming into life 
and forming an entirely new race. Among 
these, our periodicals take a high stand. 
They are the channels through which the in- 
tellect of our day pours forth many of its 
best treasures. They are no longer mere 
finger posts, pointing us to the stores of know- 
ledge. They contain the mine in themselves. 
The world is no loser by this change. There 
are many able men who are masters of some 
important ^ questions whose knowledge would 
die with them, if they had not an article in 
some modern quarterly, or monthly, or weekly, 
as a means of communication with the public. 
The periodicals have thus become enriched 
with contributions to the stock of knowledge, 
till there is no subject in divinity or philosophy, 
ethics or politics, which they have not treated 
with great ability, and on which they do not 
form a valuable reference. The writers give 
us not only their own views, but the views of 
other men ; and generally not diluted, but 
rather distilled and condensed. 



8 PREFACE. 

Among the other authorities to which I 
have referred, either in the body of the Lec- 
tures or in the Notes, and to wtlich I feel my- 
self indebted, are, Selden De Synedriis et 
Prsefecturis Juridicis Veterum Ebroeorum — 
Lowman on the Hebrew Government — Adams' 
Defence of the American Constitution — Paley's 
Moral Philosophy — Dwight's Theology — Mi- 
chaelis' Commentaries on the Laws of Moses — 
Jahn's Archaeology — Story on the Constitu- 
tion of the United States — Kent's Commentaries 
— Chateaubriand's Beauties of Christianity — 
De Tocqueville's Democracy in America' — 
Brougham's Political Philosophy — Hallam's In- 
troduction to the Literature of the Middle Ages 
— Alison's History of Europe — and Macauley's 
History of England. To these I will add the 
name of Professor Wines. Although his lec- 
tures on the Hebrew Commonwealth have not 
yet been given from the press, they have been 
delivered in many of our principal cities, and 
have been received with an attention which 
was creditable to the public taste. I hope in 
due time to have the pleasure of reading what 
I have heard with profit and pleasure. The 
lectures of Professor Wines would form a 



PREFACE 



valuable acquisition to the library of every man 
who wishes to become well acquainted with 
the Hebrew polity and the leading principles 
of Hebrew legislation. 

I have not always coincided with the views 
embraced by some of the writers to whom I 
have referred ; and I have been the more care- 
ful to express my dissent from Michael is, in 
order that my reference to his authority on 
some questions might not be interpreted as an 
indication that I embrace his sentiments on 
others. He was a man not only of great learn- 
ing, but of great pride in his learning. This 
led him to take positions which cannot be 
maintained, and also to treat the Bible itself 
as if he felt himself authorized rather to show 
what it ought to teach, than to explain 
what it does teach. His works contain various 
and valuable information, but he is an unsafe 
commentator for those who will not take pains 
to separate the chaff from the wheat. 

I feel that I ought not to forego this oppor- 
tunity of acknowledging the kindness of friends 
by which I have been enabled to pursue the 
work to which for some time past I have devot- 
ed myself. Subject after subject has been pre- 



1* 



10 PREFACE. 

sented for consideration till I have been indue 
ed to enter upon fields of inquiry far beyond 
the limits originally contemplated ; and of 
course the more time is required to prepare 
the whole work for the press. I am constant- 
ly reminded by those best qualified to judge, 
that investigations professing to illustrate the 
connection between science and religion ought 
to be conducted with great care and delibera- 
tion. Nothing can be gained, and much may 
be lost, by injudicious haste. It is not to be 
denied that in the contest which Christianity 
has been called to wage against "philosophy 
falsely so called," truth has too often suffered 
by arguments in its defence that were found in 
the end to be superficial and inconclusive. 

Some of our distinguished scholars and 
divines revised and rewrote many of their 
most useful sermons twelve or fourteen times 
before publication ; and if they were willing to 
bestow such care and diligence on discourses 
which treated the more familiar subjects of 
Christianity, I ought not to be sparing of labor 
and patience when pursuing investigations on 
the harmony between those two great depart- 



PREFACE. H 

ments of knowledge, the Word and the 
Works of God. 

Sincerely do I wish that the work I have 
before me was in abler hands than mine. I 
derive satisfaction from the hope that I shall 
be followed by those who will supply my de- 
ficiencies. " Everv are," says a distinguished 
writer, "as well as every individual, has its 
specific duty ; and the duty of the nineteenth 
century is to bring science, in all its discove- 
ries, to bear upon religion, and to corroborate, 
if we may so speak, the Word of God." 
There seems to be a wide spread conviction 
of this important truth among intelligent Chris- 
tians. But although the attention of able 
scientific men has been turned to the subject, 
the adequate illustration of the Scriptures by 
the discoveries of science is a work only just 
begun. Much, much remains to be done be- 
fore learning shall have paid the debt which 
she owes to the volume of inspiration. The 
christian scholar should never rest satisfied till 
every discovery in the world of nature is laid 
at the foot of His altars, who is "the Wav, the 
Truth, and the Life." Although I may be able 
to do but little in carrying forward so impor- 



12 PREFACE. 

tant a service, I should feel grateful if allowed 
to have any part in it; nor do I know how I 
could be more usefully employed, than in ful- 
filling the task which in this view I have pre- 
scribed to myself. 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 



The capacity of nations for self-government is 
one of the great questions of the age. Fresh dis- 
cussions of it are prompted by events which follow 
each other in such rapid succession as to resemble 
the ever-varying figures and colors of the kaleides- 
cope. Governments in the old world, which had 
endured for centuries, have fallen into a state of di- 
lapidation; and, in some instances, their foundations 
have been destroyed by convulsions, which required 
but a single day for their entire overthrow. To an 
extent seldom witnessed before, we have seen the 
Scripture fulfilled — " Remove the diadem, and take 
off the crown : this shall not be the same : exalt him 
that is low, and abase him that is high. I will over- 
turn, overturn, overturn it ; and it shall be no more, 
until He come whose right it is ; and I will give it 



14 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

Him." In the midst of this removal of diadems and 
these wide-spreading revolutions, men very properly 
inquire as to what must be the result when the peo- 
ple are thus aiming to take civil power into their 
own hands, and claim to be governed under forms 
and rulers of their own choice. As may be inferred 
from the words of the prophet just quoted, the ques- 
tion is intimately connected, not only with the stabi- 
lity of just government, but with the spread of the 
Gospel ; and every one who is the friend of his race 
and of Christianity, should be willing to contribute 
his aid to illustrate its importance and defend it 
from error and abuse. In all great changes which 
affect social or political organizations of long stand- 
ing, there is danger of rashness and excess ; and in 
breaking away from one set of evils, communities 
sometimes rush into others of an opposite character, 
but still more disastrous tendency. 

Men always become vain in their imaginations 
when they turn away from the word of God, and 
neglect to hear it in relation to any subject on which 
it condescends to give us instruction. A distin- 
guished author has of late entitled one of his best 
Essays " The Bible the best guide to political skill 
and foresight ;" and it is to be viewed among 
the redeeming signs of the times, that public men 
and profound thinkers are turning increased, at*en- 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 15 

tion to the inspired volume, not only as a revelation 
of mercy to fallen man, but as a record of the cardi- 
nal principles of wisdom and equity which should 
enter into the government of nations. Happy will it 
be for all lands when their rulers will take increasing 
counsel from "the Father of Lights" "by whom 
princes decree justice," both as to the source of their 
authority over men, and the manner in which it 
should be exercised. This would be another step to- 
wards the promised consummation, when " nation 
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall 
they learn war any more." Not a few of those who 
are counted among our leading statesmen have be- 
come deeply impressed with these convictions ; and 
at their suggestion, I have endeavored in the follow- 
ing Lectures to illustrate 

The connection between the Holy Scriptures and 
the Science of Civil Government. 

I am far from supposing that I can do full justice 
to the subject. I approach it as an expositor of 
Scriptural truth, not as a statesman or a jurist ; and 
I shall feel rewarded if I may be the means of 
leading the minds of abler and more accomplished 
men to develope it at greater length and to more 
perfection. 

The tradition that Divine authority was requisite 



16 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

to establish laws, or a government of laws over a 
people, was very general during the ages of anti- 
quity. The belief also seems to have been most 
widely diffused wherever civilization and refine- 
ment had made the greatest advancement. The laws 
of Crete were said to have been given to Minos by in- 
spiration from Jupiter. Apollo, we are told, revealed 
the laws of Lacedaemon to Lycurgus ; and to ensure 
a just interpretation of them, the deity allowed him- 
self to be consulted from time to time at the Oracle 
of Delphos. Numa declared himself indebted to 
Egeria for the statutes and ordinances which lay at 
the foundation of Roman greatness and supremacy. 
Referring to the general prevalence of such tra- 
ditions, an able commentator on government has 
remarked, " there is nothing in which mankind have 
been more unanimous." But while we fully agree 
with him as to the fact, we entirely dissent from him 
when he adds, " yet nothing can be inferred from it, 
but that the multitude have always been credulous, 
and the few artful." The unanimity of the belief, 
leads, as we think, to quite a different conclusion. 
Sound philosophy has discovered, that in all such 
traditions there is a mixture of truth with error; 
that there is scarce a fable to be found in the my- 
thologies of ancient times without a " moral," which 
can be traced back to some revelation previously 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 17 

derived from the true God. Accordingly we con- 
sider these fictions or fables respecting the origin of 
civil laws as another acknowledgment of the truth 
so conspicuously repeated in the Scriptures, that 
" there is no power but of God ;" that " the powers 
that be are ordained of God ;" in other words, that 
the obligation of the ruled to obey their rulers rests 
upon the Divine will as its great and ultimate 
reason. 

But while there is a general concurrence among 
moral and political writers in the doctrine that civil 
government is founded on the will of God, they are 
by no means so fully agreed respecting the extent 
to which he has revealed his will on the subject. 
And the object which we now propose to ourselves 
is to inquire how far the Scriptures go, in revealing 
the essential principles which enter into a just and 
wise construction of the civil authority which man 
may rightfully exercise over man. We turn " to the 
law and to the testimony," and ask, Is government, 
simply as government, all that we find there sanction- 
ed as the ordinance of God ; and have its different 
forms been left to be elaborated by the sagacity of po- 
liticians and statesmen, all of them sharing alike in 
the Divine approbation ? Do the Autocrat of Russia, 
and the Sultan of Turkey, inheriting thrones which 
have been gained by violence and blood, hold their 



18 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

power by a tenure as scriptural as the chief Magis- 
trates of these United States, who have been raised 
to their office by the choice of those whom they 
govern ? 

The Bible, if we do not mistake its meaning, 
answers these inquiries in a way that may well 
render it increasingly valuable in the eyes of every 
one who desires the present and future happiness of 
his race. As we follow its teachings, we find it goes 
back into the antiquity of nations, and records their 
origin and progress, with a clearness to which no 
other volume can aspire. It shows that the form 
of government first prevailing in the world was 
the patriarchal. And while the earth was peopled 
rather by families than by nations, dominion in the 
hands of one man might not have been productive 
of any oppressive wrongs. But when communities 
had become widened into large kingdoms, ties of 
kindred were lost in ambition for power ; and tyran- 

m 

ny, with its unsparing exactions, was soon felt as the 
scourge of humanity. Then, as the Scriptures teach, 
the Most High made known a remedy for this sore 
evil. But it is not his manner to ordain mere ab- 
stractions when he gives ordinances for the benefit 
of man. If government of any kind is to be rendered 
intelligible or tangible, it must have some form or 
embodiment ; and as " at the beginning," he taught 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 19 

how the domestic relations were to be created and 
sustained ; so also, when nations " had begun to mul- 
tiply on the earth," he revealed his will respecting 
the origin and tenure of authority in a State, show- 
ing how the relations between rulers and ruled 
should be formed and regulated. When he " brought 
the Hebrews out of the land of Egypt, out of the 
house of bondage," his first care was to give them 
laws and ordinances by which he made known his 
redeeming grace for lost man. But he did not forget 
their temporal welfare as a Nation, while he guided 
their faith as his Church. He formed them into a 
Commonwealth under civil enactments, which embrace 
all the essential features of national freedom, or of 
a well-ordered Republic. 

This religious aspect of the subject enhances 
its claim upon our careful consideration. And is 
it not fitting and seasonable that civil liberty should 
be more fully rescued from the profanity with which 
it has been too often treated? Notwithstanding 
what we view as an improved state of opinion 
in some quarters, there is still much public impiety 
with regard to this inestimable blessing; impiety 
which pollutes our seats of learning, and profanes 
our high places of authority. Our educated youth 
are still taught to believe, and the people are still 
told by many of our public men, that liberty was 



20 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

cradled in the states of Greece ; and that the Solons 
and Lycurguses of former days were the great fa- 
thers of freedom to our world. We believe in a dif- 
ferent doctrine. We believe that we must look fur- 
ther back than either Athens or Sparta for the ori- 
gin of a blessing most deeply interwoven with the 
welfare of man ; and that it was not the wisdom of 
Greece in the halls of the Acropolis, but the wisdom 
of God speaking from heaven through his servant 
Moses, which first taught how the rights of a people 
should be asserted and sustained. 

While impiety is rebuked, unbelief may at the 
same time be put to shame. There are Cassandras, 
croaking prophets in our own country, who are al- 
ways predicting the speedy overthrow of our free 
institutions ; and there are Catalines and Hotspurs 
who would love to have it so, as it would open to 
them the fields of treachery and blood in which they 
delight. But there are men also of sober and re- 
flecting minds, who look on the future both abroad 
and at home with much anxiety. "Upon the earth 
there is distress of nations, with perplexity, men's 
hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after 
those things that are coming upon the earth." Far 
and near we see a tumult of kingdoms, in which 
" deep calleth unto deep ;" and the responses are loud 
and portentous. Great as the changes may be which 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 21 

we have seen taking place, they are pregnant with 
others still greater which must soon follow- They 
are Only " the beginning of the end,'* and there may 
be many fluctuations between good and evil before 
that end can be reached. The fates of empires seem 
to be governed by new laws which baffle the wisdom 
of the wise, and turn " the counsels of Ahithophels 
into foolishness." Every institution that has sprung 
from the ambition or the policy of man, seems tending 
toward a general wreck ; and the efforts of states- 
men tc prevent the catastrophe, seem only to accele- 
rate it. The gigantic strength of the popular will is, 
Samson-like, heaving at the pillars of a tyranny that 
has long doomed men to blindness as w T ell as to 
bondage ; but it too often threatens, in its maddened 
violence, to bring ruin both on the oppressed and the 
oppressors ; while the " Lords of the Philistines " 
infatuated with the love of power, and bewildered 
by the dread of losing it, are running into measures 
that must render their overthrow the more fearful 
when the day of retribution comes. Nor are the 
commotions and changes of our day confined to the 
political world. The fountains of every great deep, 
whether in church or state, are fast being broken up, 
as if to issue in another deluge that shall overthrow 
every thing that has been heretofore viewed as high 
and stable. The corrupting alliances with worldly 



22 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

pomp and power, which have long burdened Chris- 
tianity, are beginning to give way ; but we fear 
they must be wrenched by many a rude, if not 
bloody hand, before they can be finally severed. 
Gross superstitions, which have degraded Christian- 
ity down to the verge of Paganism, and the blind 
idolatries of Paganism itself, are sinking into decre- 
pitude and discredit. Mahomedanism can no longer 
claim the Crescent as its emblem. Its moon is also 
on the wane. But, although the forms of irreligion 
and error are losing their sway, we must not believe 
that they can be finally overthrown without further 
struggle ; and in the mean time the spirit of change 
which at first may have been an ambition for health- 
ful reform, too often degenerates into a blasphemous 
impiety; and instead of a meretricious faith, em- 
braces a licentious infidelity, that mocks at truth 
and at the God of truth. 

Nor should we in this brief review pass by in 
silence disquieting indications which we find at 
home. We have here "the largest liberty for the 
largest number ;" but it is too often perverted and 
abused by men who display a lawless and rabid 
hostility against many of our best institutions, both 
civil and religious. " Deceiving and being deceived, 
despising dominion, and speaking evil of dignities," 
they carry with them a hardened and unblushing 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 23 

ambition to pull down every thing which is built 
up, to unsettle every thing that has been settled 
either by the authority of God or the matured wis- 
dom of man ; and under the guise of a benevolence 
that promises to render all men free and equal, they 
would subvert every obligation of justice which 
binds society together, and every sense of truth 
and duty that should bind us all in reverence to 
our Creator. 

It should not be denied that these " signs of the 
times," which are so widely spread, are the ominous 
mutterings of a coming tempest. They are notes of 
preparation for a war which, as we are told in the 
Sriptures, is to convulse our world previous to the 
millenial reign of Him who is Prince of Peace and 
Saviour of our fallen race. In the language of pro- 
phecy, "the angel" seems to be "pouring out his 
vial into the air," and it is followed by " voices, and 
thunders, and lightnings." Opposing hosts are fast 
becoming marshalled for what may well be called 
" the battle of the great day," great in reference both 
to the magnitude of the interests involved and the 
forces engaged; and when infidelity may perhaps 
be found in strange alliance with superstition and 
tyranny against Christianity and freedom. It will 
not be a strife for some portion of territory or 
some conventional point of national honor ; but 



24 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

for the unalienable rights that belong to man cre- 
ated in the image of his Maker. It will be a war 
between the oppressors and the oppressed, between 
the doers of wrong and the sufferers of wrong, 
between the long established usages which bind 
men to the chariot wheels of civil and ecclesiastical 
domination, and their fresh born and holy purpose, 
to see for themselves and act for themselves in the 
momentous concerns " of the life which now is, and 
of that which is to come." 

With such a crisis impending, it is both na- 
tural and dutiful that we should set ourselves to 
survey with care the tenure by which we, as a 
people, hold the privileges which we enjoy, and 
which are so soon to be put at stake. How far we 
may be hereafter drawn into the coming struggle 
time must show. But the subject at present comes 
home to us in an aspect by no means equivocal. 
The duty and the destiny of America seem to have 
been written in a book that is yet but partially un- 
sealed. Enough is known, however, to indicate that 
she is to act no subordinate part in the great events 
now " casting their shadows before them." It is ob- 
vious that there are two great powers which now 
stand prominently before the- world as the distinct 
impersonations of despotism on the one hand, and of 
liberty on the other. They are the Russian Empire 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 25 

in the Old World, and the United States of America 
in the New. They are both constantly widening 
their borders, and augmenting their resources, as 
if gathering fresh accessions of strength for some 
gigantic conflict. Recent events too are bringing 
them more fully upon the confines of each other $ 
and in these times remarkable for setting at defiance 
the ordinary calculations of politicians, some colli- 
sion of interests on our own continent may yet place 
the two Powers in open hostility.* Bat although 
such an event may be counted amon*/* bare possibi- 

* It is now fifteen years since the following observations were 
made by M. De Tocqueville in his woik entitled "Democracy 
in America." Events which have sincj transpired tend to show 
how well he understood the position and character of the two 
countries. 

" There are," he remarks, " at the present time, two great nations 
in the world, which seem to tend towards the same end, although 
they started from different points I allude to the Russians and 
Americans. Both of them have giown up unnoticed: and whilst 
the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have sud- 
denly assumed a most prominent place amongst the nations ; and 
the world learned their greatness and existence at almost the 
same time. 

" All other nations seem to huve nearly reached their natural 
limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their power; 
but these are still in the act of their growth : all the others are 
stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty ; these are 
proceeding with ease and with celerity along a path to which the 
human eye can assign no term. — The Anglo-American relies upon 

2 



26 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

lities, our country is considered by general consent as 
the home and the citadel of civil freedom in a sense 
peculiar to itself; and as such is viewed with a jealous 
eye by many of the crowned heads of Europe. They 
have long consoled themselves with the belief that 
we would prove our own worst enemies, that our 
experiment of self-government would end in anarchy 
and blood; and every trifling outbreak between 
neighbors has been hailed as an omen that these 
sinister predictions were about to be fulfilled. There 
is one sure ground of hope. " If God be for us, who 
can be against us ?" If we hold our free institutions 
from God ; and if, after the example of our fathers,* 
we embalm them in our prayers as a gift from him, 
and are faithful to the trust he has reposed in us, 
then shall we still continue to possess them. They 
shall be ours from generation to generation. But if 
they come only from man, we have no such security. 
They may pass from us as a dream, and come to 
naught. May I not therefore hope to carry with me 

personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to 
the unguided exertions and common sense of the citizens; the 
Russians centre all the authority of society in a single arm : the 
principle instrument of the former is freedom ; of the latter ser- 
vitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not 
the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of 
Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe." 

* Note A. 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 27 

the attention of rulers and ruled wlio hear me, while 
I endeavor to show the Divine origin of civil freedom? 

Before entering upon the argument taken imme- 
diately from the Scriptures themselves, I would ask 
you to consider, 

How fitly it corresponds with the uniform goodness 
of God, that he should give to the world a distinct re* 
velation of his will on this subject. "Thy command- 
ment is exceeding broad," says the Psalmist. There 
is an expansive power in the Bible which reaches 
every want and condition in life. Sometimes as in 
the Decalogue, and in the " Golden Rule," of " doing 
to others as we would that others should do unto us," 
it states great general principles of duty in such 
brief language that young and old may remember 
them and carry them about as household words. 
But it does not stop here. It goes on to teach 
how these comprehensive precepts should be ap- 
plied to the various relations, whether domestic, 
social or civil, which the well-being of society re- 
quires that men should sustain to each other. And 
we may here add, that unless the relations of rulers 
and of ruled are wisely regulated, men can have no 
security in either their social or domestic enjoyments. 
As tyranny existed in the world when the Hebrews 
were brought out of Egypt, it had become the sorest 
earthly curse that could afflict our race, and one 



28 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

from which they could devise no adequate means of 
escape. If you would see how the despotism of that 
day carried bitterness and death into families and 
nations, let us take a survey of the cruelties then 
occurring every hour under the sceptre of the Pha- 
raohs. Among the people of the Hebrews every 
" life was made bitter by hard bondage." But though 
driven to " make bricks without straw," this was but 
a small part of the suffering inflicted on them by 
their unfeeling king. How wide and heart-rending 
was the cry of anguish heard from every dwelling 
where " a son is born." It w r as like the " voice in Ra- 
mah," " Rachel weeping for her children, and would 
not be comforted because they were not." The royal 
mandate had been issued, ordaining " every son that 
is born of a Hebrew woman, ye shall cast into the 
river;" and so rigidly was the command enforced 
that the Nile became a vast sepulchre for new-born 
babes ; and the house of the bereaved mother was 
converted into a home of sorrow and tears by the 
cruel death of those whose lives would have rendered 
it the abode of gladness and mirth. And this, be it 
remembered, is but an example of the oppression 
and wrong which then afflicted all nations of the 
earth. Every where, the lives, the happiness, and 
the liberty of the subject, were at the will of the 
one man who wore the crown ; and who, drunk with 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 29 

the possession of irresponsible power, ruled over 
men as over the beasts of the field. Surely there 
was much in a degradation and wretchedness like 
this, rendering it fit for Him whose " tender mercies 
are over all his works," to show how a nation may 
be governed so as best to guard against such grie- 
vous and consuming ills. 

But farther : let us look at the influence of free- 
dom on those higher faculties of man which reach 
beyond his domestic enjoyments. The sentiment so 
beautifully expressed, 

" 'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower 
" Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume," 

is verified by the history of nations, whether ancient 
or modern. History never misleads. It " is Philoso- 
phy teaching by example." Let us turn to it, and 
learn in what countries and under what kind of 
government the intellectual and moral faculties 
which adorn and dignify our nature have been 
most happily developed. 

Allow me here to quote from a work among the 
most able in our language, and well known as a 
most unbending advocate of royalty and rank for 
perfecting the body politic. " Civilized democracy," 
it tells us, " is the great moving power in human 
affairs ; the source of the greatest efforts of human 



30 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

genius ; and when duly restrained from running into 
excess, the grand instrument of human advance- 
ment. Its grand characteristic is energy, and energy 
not rousing the exertions merely of a portion of so- 
ciety, but awakening the dormant strength of mil- 
lions ; not producing merely the chivalrous valor of 
the high bred cavalier, but drawing forth the might 
that slumbers in a peasant's arm. The greatest 
achievements of genius, the noblest efforts of hero- 
ism that have illustrated the history of the species 
have arisen from the influence of this principle. 
Thence the fight of Marathon and the glories of Sa- 
lamis — the genius of Greece and the conquests of 
Rome — the heroism of Sempach and the devotion of 
Harlaem — the paintings of Raphael and the poetry 
of Tasso — the energy that covered with a velvet 
carpet the slopes of the Alps, and the industry which 
bridled the stormy seas of the German ocean. Why 
are the shores of the Mediterranean the scene to 
which the pilgrim from every quarter of the globe 
journeys to visit, at once, the cradles of civilization, 
the birthplace of arts, of arms, of philosophy, of 
poetry, and the scenes of their highest and most glo- 
rious achievements ? Because freedom spread along 
its smiling shores; because the ruins of Athens and 
Sparta, of Rome and Carthage, of Tyre and Syra- 
cuse lie on its margin ; because civilization advanc- 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 31 

ing with the white sails which glittered on its blue 
expanse, pierced, as if impelled by central heat, 
through the dark and barbarous regions of the Celtic 
race who peopled its shores. — What gave Rome the 
empire of the world, and brought the venerable en- 
signs, bearing the words, " Senatus populusque Ro- 
manus," (the senate and the people of Rome,) to the 
wall of Antoninus, and the foot of the Atlas, the wa- 
ters of the Euphrates and the Atlantic ocean ? — Re- 
publican Rome colonized the world; republican 
Greece spread the light of civilization along the 
shores of the Mediterranean. But Imperial Rome 
could never maintain the number of its own pro- 
vinces ; and the Grecian Empire slumbered on with 
a declining population for eleven hundred years."* 
Eloquent and glowing as these extracts may be 
regarded, they are not exaggerated or fanciful. 
They present a faithful picture of truth. There are 
but few green spots in our fallen world where man 
has ever made any great advancement in whatever 
most elevates his nature and improves his happi- 
ness. Among these, as we shall hereafter show, the 
land of the Hebrews stands first among ancient na- 
tions. But whether it be Palestine, Greece or Rome, 

* Blackwood, January, 1836. The article from which the ex- 
tracts are taken is entitled " The Future," and will amply repay 
a careful perusal. 



32 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

of former ages; whether it be Genoa, Venice, Hol- 
land or England, of later times, the germ, at least, 
of civil freedom, was found in them all ; and though 
its growth may at times have been retarded, and its 
beauty marred by unnatural restraints and entan- 
glements, yet just in proportion as these antagonist 
forces were removed or overcome, did the strug- 
gling spirit of freedom impart a healthful activity to 
the noblest powers and aspirations of man. What an 
impulse, for instance, was given to knowledge and 
refinement in the free States of Italy, when they 
were liberated from tyranny ? There, it may be said, 
learning and art first raised their heads, after their 
fearful overthrow by the invasion of the northern 
barbarians. What was Holland before she became 
freed frcm both ecclesiastical and civil domination ? 
With few exceptions, the minds of her people were 
as stagnant as the waters in her boundless marshes. 
There was no nerve in the national arm to bridle 
the waves of the ocean from overflowing her shores ; 
there were no fleets issuing from her ports to come 
back enriching her with the wealth of the world ; 
no seminaries of learning teeming with a growth of 
intellect that rendered the divines, the physicians, 
the lawyers, the statesmen, the philosophers of Hol- 
land, the oracles of their day throughout the civilized 
world. But soon as she acquired her national inde- 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 33 

pendence and freedom, she raised herself to a first 
rank among nations in all these high attainments ; 
and has enabled her descendants among us to look 
back upon her with high reverence for their " fa- 
therland." 

Or shall we look at another country to which, as 
a people, we can trace a more general ancestry? 
Mark the stages of progress made by England, as a 
birthplace of knowledge, refinement and high enter- 
prise for public good ; and you will see that just 
according as arbitrary power, whether in king or 
nobles, has been checked and over-ruled by the 
spirit of civil freedom in her people, her course has 
been onward. What was she before her Magna 
Charta was granted and signed as her first great 
step of disenthralment from bondage ? Her curfew 
bell was rung every night, as if to proclaim the 
darkness that covered the land, and to remind her 
of the iron sceptre that controlled her every hour 
and her best enjoyments. But what has she become 
since that day of her first release ; and especially 
since the seeds of liberty took their deep root in her 
soil during the commonwealth, and have become 
developed and embodied in her far-famed Bill of 
Rights ? There she sits like a star in the lap of the 
ocean. Her name and her power are known wher- 
ever the sun shines ; and her achievements have 

2* 



34 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

placed her first among the nations of Europe in all 
that the wise most seek to know, or the good most 
desire to do. 

But let us turn at once to our own country. 
Here, as all admit, freedom has a dwelling which 
is " like a city set upon a hill, which cannot be hid." 
Compare her as she is here, with what she was in 
Greece or Rome. There she was defaced by de- 
formities inseparable from the darkness of Pagan- 
ism. Here she has acquired the symmetry and 
beauty which could be derived only from the mould- 
ing power of Christianity. No such thing as genu- 
ine freedom can be enjoyed by a people who are di- 
vided from each other by those iron bands of caste 
which are interwoven with the structure of society 
in Pagan lands. Christianity alone has power to 
melt down such instruments of cruelty and injustice. 
It teaches the doctrine that " God hath made of one 
blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth," 
and lays its command on every man to " love his 
neighhor as himself." From these two cardinal prin- 
ciples it enforces that safe equality which preserves 
the social fabric from dissolution, and at the same 
time renders the rights of the weakest and strongest 
equally secure. If it levels distinctions among men, 
it levels upward, not downward ; it elevates the low, 
elevates them in mind and in conduct ; and so far 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 35 

as it brings down the high, it brings down nothing 
but those "vain imaginations which exalt them- 
selves against God." This is the equality which our 
free institutions, imbued with the spirit of the Bible, 
are designed to effect. The Roman patrician knew 
nothing of it, nor did he act upon it. Had you told 
him that he was sprung from the same dust as the 
humble plebeian, he would have laughed you to scorn. 

We might also compare freedom as she is here 
with what we find her in Christian nations of mo- 
dern times, but who weaken her influence by unna- 
tural alliance. Here she is not overshadowed and 
dwarfed in her growth by her proximity to towering 
royalty. She has the field to herself. She places 
sovereignty in the hands of the people, and sends 
them to the Biblfe, that they may learn how to wear 
the crown. 

And what has been the effect of her christianized 
and untrammeled sway during little more than half 
a century, on the condition of the nation ? Where 
do you find intelligence, enterprise, industry, compe- 
tency, and a respect for religion, if not acquaintance 
with its power, so general as you find them here ? 
Where such a growth in whatsoever is most essen- 
tial to public greatness ? Every thing rests on the 
diffusion of sound intelligence through the mass of 
the people, on the cultivation of a just standard of 



36 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

right and wrong among all classes ; and every where 
we have the school and the church, the teacher and 
the preacher, as the great fountains of light and 
truth to the nation. The result of such training is 
not to be questioned or overlooked. The observing 
stranger has passed through our country, and de- 
scribes it as " a land of wonders, in which every 
thing is in constant motion, and every movement 
seems an improvement ; a land where no natural 
boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man ; and 
what is not yet done, is only what he has not yet 
attempted to do." It is the mind of a whole nation 
teeming with purposes for advancement in know- 
ledge and in the power which knowledge gives. As 
a people, activity is our element. Idlers find them- 
selves alone. They can meet with ©either company 
nor countenance. The mind of every man is acting 
on the mind of his neighbor, thus stimulating the 
faculties of both to accomplish new objects and 
make new discoveries in the still unexplored regions 
of nature and of art. In illustration of this quick- 
ened and irrepressible activity, let us refer to one 
or two of those inventions which, acting in corres- 
pondence with the spirit of our age, are destined to 
work an entire change in the condition of nations, 
whether " Barbarian or Scythian, bond or free." 
It has been well observed that when great im- 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 37 

provements are about to be made in human affairs, 
some powerful agency is provided adequate to the 
end, and adapted to the occasion. Prior to the refor- 
mation came the art of printing ; that being an era 
in the history of the world, in which a new impulse 
was to be given to the spread of knowledge among 
civilized nations. We are now on the verge of an- 
other era, in which " the field is to be the world ;" in 
which Christianity is to be carried over every sea 
and through every land of the globe ; in which, 
to use the language of prophesy, " many shall run to 
and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." For the 
accomplishment of this great end, we need some new 
instrumentality for speeding communication be- 
tween the various regions of the earth ; and w r hich, 
for all moral purposes, shall bring the most distant 
nations into close neighborhood one with another. 
We see this wonder-working power in the recent 
applications of steam and electricity, which are fast 
annihilating both time and space. By means of the 
one, our vessels move on the waters in the face of 
the winds, and with a speed that outstrips them ; 
and our cars pass over the land with a swiftness that 
leaves our vessels far behind them. By means of 
the other, intelligence is sent to the terminus of the 
railroad, though distant thousands of miles, g'ving 
notice that the cars have just begun to move. It is 



38 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

through these newly discovered agencies, that seas 
and lands, although hitherto unexplored, are soon to 
become the pathways of truth and knowledge ; and 
the goocknews of "Glory to God in the highest, on 
earth peace and good will towards men," are to be 
borne " to the utmost borders of the earth." A new 
longevity is bestowed on man, for the length of his life 
is to be measured by his power of doing good ; and he 
can now accomplish in a day what formerly would 
have cost the tedious labor of months. The lever is 
prepared for human hands which is to do more than 
the lever of Archimedes. It is not only to move the 
world, but to transform and cover it with the light 
of truth. And where were these inventions first 
made available for the great purposes they are now 
answering ? Whatever may be said respecting the 
claims of Holland to the credit of having invent- 
ed the art of printing while cherishing the seeds of a 
republic ; it cannot be denied, that in our own land 
of freedom, the Steamer and the Telegraph have 
been nurtured into activity and usefulness ; and the 
work has been done mainly, not by men of any pri- 
vileged class, but by those who sprung from the 
multitude ; and whose faculties, sharpened by a sense 
of self-reliance, persevered against ridicule, wrong, 
and even want, till their object was gained. 

The same spirit of achievement is seen in other 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 39 

branches of knowledge, which has so happily dis- 
played itself in the useful arts. The time has gone by 
when even the mocker Would dare to ask, Who reads 
an American book ? How rapidly our Bench and our 
Bar have risen to eminence during the last half cen- 
tury ; and how liberal have been their contributions 
to the great store-house of legal knowledge, is ac- 
knowledged wherever jurisprudence is understood 
and appreciated. If I may speak of my own profes- 
sion, our divines, according to their numbers, have 
done their part to vindicate and illustrate the great 
truths of the Gospel. But our distinguishing achieve- 
ment in religion is that in which as a people w T e yet 
stand alone. Nor is it to be traced simply to the 
wisdom of our divines, or of any one profession or 
class of our citizens. It is the result of public senti- 
ment pervading the land. We have severed the 
Church from the State. We have withdrawn and 
secured religion, the holiest boon of heaven, from cor- 
rupting alliance with civil authority. We have dis- 
covered, if discovery it can be called, that religion 
is best supported when self-supported. We have 
brought to the proof of successful experiment, what 
was long ridiculed as a dream, that those who enjoy 
the blessings of Christianity, will best sustain her 
worship and ordinances by their voluntary offerings. 
We ask neither establishment nor toleration from the 



40 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

State. We require nothing but protection for all 
worshippers, and in any form of worship which con- 
science approves, and which will not disturb the 
peace and safety of others. I dwell on this subject 
the more because it so well exemplifies the fearless 
and truth-loving spirit of inquiry which belongs to 
our nation. The belief that religion could be sus- 
tained only by the patronage of the State, was indu- 
rated by the rust of ages. It formed an article in 
Protestant as well as Papal creeds. The Reforma- 
tion, with all its power in dispelling delusions and 
removing abuses, had failed to create a reformed 
and scriptural faith on this important point, impor- 
tant both to the peace of the State, and the purity 
and prosperity of the Church. In this country we 
broke down ecclesiastical establishments when we 
broke away from colonial dependence. We made 
the Church independent of the State when we 
wrought out the independence of the nation. We 
have based the claims of religion for support on her 
own excellence, as she herself reveals it to the hearts 
of men ; and now, having watched the working of 
our system for more than half a century, we find 
the result to be most propitious. We find it in the 
liberality with which the ministry and ordinances 
of the Gospel are sustained. In no land throughout 
Protestant Christendom are the clergy, as a class, 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 41 

placed in circumstances of a more happy compe- 
tency than in these United States. If none of them 
are luxuriating in princely incomes, none of them 
are left destitute of the necessaries of life. We find 
it also in the spirit of mutual kindness and good will 
which prevails among the various denominations of 
Christians. " Judah does not vex Ephraim, nor does 
Ephraim envy Judah." No one sect, because esta- 
blished by law, can look down upon others who do 
not enjoy the same patronage. We all share equally 
in the favor of the State, and must all depend equal- 
ly on ourselves for favor among the people. We 
find it also in the enlarged munificence and in- 
creased activity wdth which our churches act, for 
the spread of the Gospel. Universal experience 
shows, that it is those whose hearts are trained 
to liberality by sustaining religion among them- 
selves, who lead the way in voluntary offerings for 
sending it to others. 

Not to cite farther proofs showing the vigor 
with which the minds of our people act, in new ac- 
quisitions of knowledge, and in correcting old and 
long established errors and abuses ; let me now ask. 
what can it be that gives to the nation this elastic 
spirit, this indomitable energy and perseverance ! 
What, that diffuses this character so widely as to 
make it extend to every class, in every condition of 



42 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

life ? No doubt we owe it to our wide spread Chris- 
tianity as the first and great cause. But had Christi- 
anity been cramped and enfeebled by civil disabilities 
and restraints, she would have been far from im- 
parting this tone to the public mind. She has long 
existed under these counteracting influences in 
lands where we find but little proof of such power 
on the character of the people. No, it is only 
where Christianity is allowed to act herself out ; to 
act in alliance with civil and religious freedom ; 
a freedom which she sanctions by her own high au- 
thority ; that she can " have free course," reaching 
all classes and imbuing a whole community with a 
spirit which renders them alike blessed in themselves, 
and the instrument of blessing to the world around 
them. 

Surely then, if freedom is thus interwoven with 
the improvement and happiness of our race, it may 
well be expected that whatever is essential to its 
establishment should be revealed in a volume which 
" has the promise of the life that now is, and of that 
which is to come." The precious Book has assured 
us that " the hairs of our head are all numbered ;" 
that our " bread shall be given us and our water 
shall be sure ;" and when we are taught that the 
Most High governs with such care in the minutest 
concerns of human life, can we suppose that he 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 43 

would fail to instruct men in the nature and im- 
portance of institutions by which every thing valu- 
able in their personal, domestic, civil and Christian 
welfare, is so deeply affected. 

I would not close this Lecture without asking 
you to reflect, that this desire for progress, this on- 
ward spirit which I have described as characteristic 
of our nation, unless wisely regulated may lead into 
errors of no ordinary magnitude. Let it not be sup- 
posed that we would have the elastic spring of the 
bow destroyed, because owing to unskilful hands it 
may sometimes send the arrow beyond* the mark. 
Wrong, oppression and injustice have been so 
long prevalent in our fallen world, that inveterate 
evils are not always to be eradicated, nor great 
benefits acquired and secured by powers of action 
that have been tamed dowm to what some w T ould 
call a safe mediocrity ; and if the sultry and deadly 
atmosphere can be purified by nothing short of the 
breeze freshening into a gale ; then let the wind 
blow, and even, if need be, let the thunder roll, 
though the trees of the forest be shaken, and some 
of their branches be scattered in the storm. But 
while we would not have the energy of our people 
subdued or destroyed, we desire to see it wisely 
governed, and their eyes opened to the dangers 
which beset them. 



44 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

There is dffnger of their being carried away by a 
spirit of recklessness and presumption. We have 
seen this too often, and especially in the crowded 
thoroughfares of business and of ambition, where 
men, excited by emulation and collision with each 
other, venture they know not where, until all is left 
to the hazard of the die. This gambling, whether 
for power or for wealth, is demoralizing. It blunts 
every sensibility to that which is right and com- 
mendable, and opens a door to temptation in its 
worst forms. " I, wisdom, dwell with prudence ;" and 
no prize, however splendid in appearance, is worth 
the cost, if it is gained by disregarding the dictates 
of either the one or the other. 

We should also be on our guard against a spirit 
of pride and self-sufficiency, which would undervalue 
and repudiate much that is venerable from its age 
and long-tried worth. If our growth, as a people, 
has been rapid, we are yet young. We have yet 
much to gain before we can reach the grace and 
symmetry of nations much older than ourselves. We 
should be careful not to glide into the false notion 
that every thing which is old is also worthless. 
Many of the elements of our own happiness and 
prosperity are derived from nations now venerable 
for their years and time-honored institutions. While 
we " prove all things," we should be careful to " hold 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 45 

fast that which is good;" and of things which are 
good, we should prize those most highly, the value 
of which has been tested by the experience of past 
ages, and which come down to us commended by 
the judgment of the wise and the great, who are 
now in their graves. Especially should w r e always 
remember with a grateful regard the country from 
which we have derived our language, our laws, and 
much of what belongs to the very essence of our 
civil freedom. If she once may have viewed us with 
feelings that were both unnatural and unkind, they 
have given place to a good w T ill that is becoming 
more generous and more just. The speedy and con- 
stant intercourse of the present day has already 
corrected the mistakes of former years, and has led 
the two countries to a more just appreciation of each 
other. Let the daughter remember what the mo- 
ther has done to challenge veneration and love ; and 
let the mother rejoice in the growing beauty and 
strength of a daughter, who in her best deeds be- 
stows a high commendation on her early training. 
Let both remember that they equally belong to that 
race of the human family by whose labors truth and 
righteousness are soon to be spread through the 
earth. The man is a poor interpreter of u the signs 
of the times," who has not learnt that to England 
and America, under God, belongs the foremost rank 



46 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

in the great service of regenerating the world. The 
Governments of the two countries should keep this 
consideration constantly before them, and every op- 
portunity should be improved to cherish the mutual 
kindness and respect which befit the high work they 
are called unitedly to fulfil. They should view it as 
their mission, not to kindle the torch of war, but to 
act as conservators of peace; and if they ever draw 
the sword, it should not be against each other, but to 
compel nations to sheathe it who have long bathed 
it in blood. A war between England and America 
would be the heaviest calamity in this eventful 
age, which the pride, or vanity, or ambition of wild 
politicians could inflict on the world. 

There is also great danger lest in this rapid 
course of prosperity and development, we should 
fall into forgetfulness of God. " Beware that thou 
forget not the Lord thy God, — but when thou hast 
eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses 
and dwelt therein ; and when thy herds and thy 
flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multi- 
plied, and all that thou hast is multiplied ; then thy 
heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, 
and say in thine heart, My power and the might of 
my hand has gotten me this wealth." To no nation, 
not even to Israel, prosperous as they were, could 
this admonition be more applicable than to ourselves 



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 47 

as a people. Our prosperity has outstripped the 
predictions of the most sanguine ; but forgetfulness 
of the Giver in his gifts, is already but too manifest 
among us ; and I dread the prevalence of it. When- 
ever prosperity and success, especially in objects of 
public interest, crown the efforts of man, his proud 
heart seems inclined to ask, " Is not this great Baby- 
lon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom 
by the might of my power, and for the honor of my 
majesty." True, it is a haughty monarch, glorying 
in his uncontrolled and unlimited sovereignty, who 
stands as the recorded example of such guilt and of 
its consequences. But in a land where every one 
feels that the sovereignty belongs to the people, and 
that he is one of the people ; and that whatever na- 
tional greatness may be achieved, belongs to him 
as a part of the nation ; there is peculiar danger 
that this boastful spirit may become a national and 
easily besetting sin. And if our pride is pictured 
in the example of the King of Babylon, ought we 
not to fear lest our doom should also be found 
written in the tragical end of his kingdom ? Pride 
intoxicates while it also corrupts, making those 
an easy prey who might otherwise be invincible. 
It ruled the throne of Babylon when Nebuchad- 
nezzar no longer reigned. It taught his son to 
" lift up himself against the Lord of heaven ;" and 



48 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 

to abandon himself to scenes of revelry and pro- 
fanity, leaving the gates of the city unguarded, until 
they were entered by the victorious Medes and Per- 
sians. " The fingers of a man's hand," which wrote 
his doom " on the plaster of the wall," have repeated 
the warning ever since ; and from the day when that 
once proud and powerful empire, " the beauty of the 
Chaldees' excellency, " hardened her mind in pride," 
and said, " I shall be a Lady for ever — I, and none 
else besides me," the world has been filled with ex- 
amples, both in princes and people, that " a haughty 
spirit goeth before a fall." May God save our nation 
from the sin, and then we shall be safe from its 
penalty. 



SECOND LECTURE. 



In the opening Lecture of this series, we ad- 
vanced the proposition that not only is Civil Govern- 
ment the ordinance of God, but that the essential 
principles of civil freedom carry the seal of his au- 
thority 5 and that when nations " began to multiply 
on the earth," he made a revelation of his will, 
showing how the relation between rulers and ruled 
should be formed and regulated. This revelation 
was given when the Hebrews were brought out of 
Egypt. While God instructed them as his church 
in the great doctrines of redeeming grace, he did 
not overlook their welfare as a nation ; but distin- 
guished and elevated them above the kingdoms of 
that day, by forming them into a commonwealth un- 
der civil enactments, which embraced all the essen- 
tial features of public freedom, or of a well-ordered 
Republic. 

Before entering on the argument, we replied to 
the inquiry, whether civil liberty is such a blessing 
as to render it a fit subject for the express revela- 
tion which we assigned to it. We showed that it is 
in the fullest sense worthy of a revelation direct 



50 SECOND LECTURE. 

from God, because of its importance not only to the 
physical and social welfare of man, but to the deve- 
lopment of his intellectual and moral faculties ; and, 
because without it, Christianity itself is enfeebled 
and fettered. Indeed Christendom, far and near, 
seems to be waking up to this great truth. That 
honored class of men, the apostles of our day, the 
missionaries now laboring in heathen lands, are con- 
stantly sending to the churches at home, entreaties 
that we would pray for the spread of civil liberty, as 
indispensable to the " free course " of the Gospel. 

We now come to the direct proof of our proposi- 
tion. We may begin by an argument taken from 

The nature of the case. It has passed into a maxim 
in the science of public morals, that men do not so 
much make institutions, as that institutions make 
men. This is one of the results which philosophy has 
drawn from universal history. Nations do not rise 
from degradation and barbarity of their own accord, 
unaided by some external agency above and beyond 
themselves. And what, let me ask, was the condi- 
tion of the whole world when Moses arose as the 
inspired teacher and liberator of the Hebrews ? Ig- 
norance and bondage covered the human race as 
with the pall of death. The dominion of rulers was 
either acquired by the sword, or transmitted by in- 
heritance from father to son ; the people having no 



SECOND LECTURE. 51 

voice ill the choice of him who was over them, more 
than if they had been the beasts of the field or the 
clods of the valley. He had risen to power without 
their will, and often against it. He was not of them, 
was not responsible to them, and claimed authority 
over them and over all that was theirs, unlimited 
and uncontrolled. The nations indeed moaned be- 
neath the tyranny of the despotic oppression, but it 
was the moan of despair. Or if in their agony a 
hand was raised to resist cruelty and wrong, it was 
soon crushed and riveted down by some new and 
heavier chain. Few had the courage to struggle for 
liberation, and even when the effort was made, it 
w r as rather like the frantic writhings of a man goad- 
ed to madness, and beating himself against the walls 
of his cell, than the wise and rational labors which 
could obtain freedom, and secure it when obtained. 
The gloom of the picture was increased by the 
downward tendency of things from age to age ; 
every change being only from bad to worse ; and 
this change affecting rulers as well as ruled, mak- 
ing the one more corrupt, as it made the other more 
wretched. Indeed, such must always be the effect 
of despotism on the despot himself. The possession 
of power without responsibility might corrupt an 
angel. It was their grasping after it that caused 
angels to fall, and converted them into fiends. We 



52 SECOND LECTURE. 

can then readily perceive what must have been its 
effect on men born a fallen race, and " whose 
feet " from infancy had been " swift to shed blood." 
Accordingly the thrones of that day became filled by 
kings who were rather monsters than men, and w^ho 
sported with the lives and happiness of their sub- 
jects in the very wantonness of cruelty and injustice. 

Now from what quarter, or by what power was 
this sore evil which lay upon the earth to be either 
checked or remedied ? The principles of stable and 
equitable government form one of the most compli- 
cated of human sciences. None but comprehensive 
and enlightened minds can fully understand them. 
The wise and great men wha were the fathers of 
our Republic found the application of them to the 
wants and welfare of our land, long after they had 
been tried elsewhere, to be a work which tasked 
their powers as statesmen to the utmost. 

If then, in the midst of the darkness and degra- 
dation which were universal throughout the world 
in the days of old, we find the nation of the Hebrews, 
yesterday enslaved, feeble and rude, and still strug- 
gling with the privations and dangers of the wilder- 
ness, yet rising up to our view at once, and showing 
themselves possessed of laws which secured to them 
every blessing of civil freedom, which so combined 
the various powers of the state as equally to secure 



SECOND LECTURE. 53 

the rights of the weak and the strong, the poor 
and the rich ; the question arises, — How came this 
favored people into the possession of enactments 
ensuring to them a freedom so invaluable in itself, 
so unknown before their day, and to which the na- 
tions around them were still utter strangers ? Was 
it " from heaven or of men ?" Was it taught them 
of God, or did it spring from the then dim wisdom 
of earth? I ask the statesman, who knows what 
government is, and the wisdom required to devise it. 
I ask the historian, who has read history with the 
eye of philosophy, and who knows what the events 
of time should teach us. Both, I venture to say, will 
answer, that such an achievement was as far beyond 
the wisdom of that day, as the creation of a world 
lay beyond its power. 

Let us then turn at once to the Book in which 
are recorded the ordinances given to the Hebrews 
for their government as a nation ; and let us see 
how far it reveals the principles which are essential 
to civil liberty as displayed in a wisely constructed 
Republic. Essential, we say, for there are many 
things in civil polity, when wisely adjusted, which 
should be left to be regulated by circumstances or 
considerations of expediency. Such are the number of 
offices which the laws may embrace ; their relations 
to each other, and the terms on which they are held. 



54 SECOND LECTURE. 

These may be different in one nation from what 
they are in another, and yet the people themselves 
may be equally free. In like manner also, a govern- 
ment may be varied so as to meet the various pur- 
suits and interests of different nations, and yet pre- 
serve all that enters into a true perception of public 
freedom. A community that is chiefly employed 
in commerce, will require laws very different from 
those adapted to the welfare of a people who ex- 
pend their main strength in agriculture. But, not- 
withstanding these diversities in free States, still 
these are great features which cannot be severed 
from public liberty without either impairing or de- 
stroying it ; and these, we say, are all to be found 
divinely appointed, and brought more or less into 
action in the commonwealth of the Hebrews. We 
find here 

Government by representation, the election of rulers 
by the ruled, the public officer chosen by the public 
voice. — " This," observes the celebrated Chateau- 
briand, " may be classed among three or four dis- 
coveries that have created another universe." The 
question we would ask is, where, when, and among 
whom was this great principle first introduced? 
The great majority of nations are still ignorant of 
it. There was a time, as we have seen ; when it 
was unknown to all. We ask, what people first 



SECOND LECTURE. 55 

brought it into practice and enjoyed the freedom 
that springs from it ? 

An accomplished historian of modern times, 
thinks it can be traced to the early councils of the 
Christian church.* We believe that a still higher 
antiquity belongs to it, and that we first meet with 
it among the Hebrews, when in the wilderness, 
soon after they were brought out from the bondage 
of Egypt. 

The subject may be said to come before us, but 
bearing a merely incipient shape, in the advice of 
Jethro to Moses, when " Israel was encamped at 
the mount of God." Exodus, 18 : 13-24. " It came to 
pass on the morrow," as we are told, " that Moses sat 
to judge the people, and the people stood by Mo- 
ses from the morning unto the evening." When 
Jethro had seen how constantly and laboriously 
Moses was occupied in "judging between one and 
another " of the people, " when they had a matter ;" 
he wisely said, " the thing that thou doest is not 
good. Thou will surely wear away, both thou and 
this people that is with thee ; for this thing is too 
heavy for thee ; thou art not able to perform it thy- 
self alone. Hearken now unto my voice, I will give 
thee counsel, and God shall be with thee : Be thou 
for the people to God- ward, that thou mayest bring 

* Note B. 



66 612COND LECTURE. 

the causes unto God : and thou shalt teach them 
ordinances and laws, and shalt show them the way 
wherein they must walk, and the work that they 
must do." But having thus advised Moses to re- 
strict himself to the work which properly belonged 
to him as the inspired teacher and leader of the peo- 
ple, Jethro proceeds with his counsel, saying, " More- 
over thou shalt provide out of all the people, able 
men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating cove- 
tousness ; and place such over them to be rulers of 
thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, 
and rulers of tens ; and let them judge the people at 
all seasons ; and it shall be that every great mat- 
ter they shall bring unto thee, but every small mat- 
ter they shall judge. If thou shalt do this thing, and 
God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to 
endure, and all this people shall go to their place in 
peace. So Moses hearkened to the voice of his fa- 
ther-in-law, and did all that he had said." 

It is to be observed that no reference is here 
made to a choice of rulers by the people, either in 
the advice given by Jethro, or in the action founded 
upon it. Probably he did not contemplate such a 
thing. It would seem that this counsel came from a 
higher source. Jethro was both a wise man and a 
worshipper of the true God ; and feeling that the in- 
troduction of such a magistracy as he recommended 



SECOND LECTURE. 57 

was a measure of vast importance to the nation, he 
referred Moses to God for a special intimation of the 
Divine will, when he should proceed to act in the 
matter. " If," says he, " thou shalt do this thing, 
and God shall command thee so," or so authorize 
and commission thee, as the Hebrew word properly 
means, thus intimating that the thing was not to be 
done unless God would commajid or authorize the 
proceeding. No one who is acquainted with the 
close and habitual intercourse which Moses main- 
tained with God, in all that he did as the leader of 
Israel, can doubt as to his having asked for the Di- 
vine direction which Jethro judged so indispensa- 
ble. And what were the steps which he actually 
took in order to provide rulers for the people after 
he had sought instruction from God ; he himself tells 
us in the Book of Deuteronomy, where he recites the 
whole transaction ; and specifies both what the peo- 
ple did, and what he did on the memorable occasion. 
We should remember that the name of " Deute- 
ronomy " is given to this Book of the Pentateuch, 
because it contains a second or supplementary ac- 
count of what was announced as the law or will of 
God, on the subjects to which it refers. Let us then 
look at what Moses here declares to have been done 
when rulers were appointed ; and observe the mi- 
nuteness with which he pictures out the w r hole pro- 

3* 



58 SECOND LECTURE. 

ceedings from first to last. Deut. 1 : 9-18. "I spake 
unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear 
you myself alone : the Lord your God hath multipli- 
ed you, and behold, ye are this day as the stars of 
heaven for multitude. How can I myself alone 
bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your 
strife ?" Having thus alluded to the necessity which 
called for the appointment of rulers, what does he 
describe as the first step for the accomplishment of 
the object ? It is " Take you (or select for your- 
selves)* wise men, and understanding, and known 
among jour tribes, and I will make them rulers over 

* E h p5a toS '*Dh are the Hebrew words, and they are the 
same which are used by Joshua, (18 : 4,) where having reproved 
the children of Israel for allowing seven tribes still to remain 
without " their inheritance in the land which the Lord God had 
given them ;" he directs, " Give out from among you," or select 
for yourselves, " three men for each tribe : and I will send then^ 
and they shall rise and go through the land, and describe it into 
seven parts." It was an important mission on which these men 
were to be sent, and before they were authorized to proceed upon 
it they were to be selected, or " given out " by the voice of the 
people. Many other passages might be cited to show that this is 
the meaning of the verb -"Di! The generic idea is to put forth, 
to propose, or prefer for some given object: as in 2 Samuel, 
11 : 15. " Set ye," or put ye forth, " Uriah in the fore-front of the 
hottest battle ;" the post of honor, as it was the post of danger 
for the brave soldier ; and which no doubt Uriah would readily 
take, little conscious as he was of the treachery by which he was 
to be sacrificed. 



SECOND LECTURE. 59 

you. And ye answered me, and said, The thing 
which thou hast spoken is good for us to do. So I 
took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, 
and made them heads over you, captains over thou- 
sands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over 
fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among 
your tribes. And I charged your judges at that time, 
saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, 
and judge righteously between every man and his 
brother, and the stranger that is with him. Ye shall 
not respect persons in judgment ; but ye shall hear 
the small as well as the great ; ye shall not be afraid 
of the face of man ; for the judgment is God's : and 
the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, 
and I will hear it. And I commanded you at that 
time all the things that you should do."* 

There can be no doubt as to the object in view 
throughout the transaction here described. It was 
the creation of a civil magistracy in a form adapted 
to the existing wants of the people. And we find in 
the proceedings so carefully and distinctly recited 
by Moses, the origin or the first precedent of elec- 
tive civil government. It appears to have been 
among the first things ordained for the Hebrew na- 
tion, after they were brought out from their bond- 
age in Egypt, and were being formed into a State. 

* Note C. 



60 SECOND LECTURE, 

It was also one of the great privileges that distin- 
guished them from all other nations of the earth, 
which still remained under the merciless tyranny 
already described as the calamity of the human race 
at that day. And observe, how fully the record co- 
vers every essential point in the case. 

In the first place, the candidates for office were 
not to be selected from any one privileged class. 
They were taken " out of all the people." They must 
be well known for their intellectual and moral worth, 
and their fitness for the stations to which they were 
chosen. They were to be, as it is here expressed, 
" able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating 
covetousness ;" " wise men and understanding, and 
known among the tribes ;" and these qualifications 
being not only all-important but all-sufficient, none 
others were required. 

In the second place, the voice of the people to be 
ruled was the first step in the appointment of the 
ruler. It was to " all Israel," that the direction was 
given, " Take you," or choose for yourselves, " wise 
men," &c. and it was the people over whom the 
magistrates were to act, who answered Moses, say 
ing, " The thing which thou hast spoken is good for 
us to do." 

In the third place, after the rulers were thus 
chosen, they were inducted into office by an appro- 



SECOND LECTURE. 61 

priate existing authority. Moses, who had his com- 
mission direct from Heaven, " made them rulers," as 
it is here termed ; in other words, invested them 
with the authority to which the people had previ- 
ously chosen them, and gave them a charge which 
might well be adopted as a manual by every one 
who is called to the exercise of civil magistracy.* 
Such it seems was the mode in which, by Divine 
direction, office was conferred in the Hebrew Com- 
monwealth. The government was in every just 
sense a government of the people. The magistrate 
was chosen by the suffrages of those among whom 
he was to act ; and at the same time well known in- 
tegrity and competency were the only qualifications 

* In a state of society so simple as that of the Hebrews, when 
an organized magistracy was first given them, no disadvantage 
could well arise from having different offices filled by the same 
man, to an extent that would not be wise or safe for a commu- 
nity in which interests have become more complicated and various. 
In the passages quoted above we find men described as " Chiefs 
of the tribes," as " Heads over the people," as " Rulers," as " Cap- 
tains," as " Officers," and then addressed as " Judges." This lat- 
ter term, indeed, seems to have been of very extensive application 
in the Hebrew Commonwealth. It is sometimes applied to those 
who were employed in the ordinary administration of justice; and 
again to such as Jepthah, Gideon and others, to whom, as chief 
magistrates of the nation, were committed the supreme command 
of the armies and other important trusts. A union of different 
offices in the same man, or the same body of men, is a thing not 
unknown in modern governments, our own among the number. 



62 SECOND LECTURE. 

required for any station, from the highest to the 
lowest. For the same rule indeed seems to have 
been applied not only to officers chosen for the re- 
gular discharge of duties in the Commonwealth, 
but also to others selected for special occasions. 
When twelve men were to be selected to " search 
out the land," and to point out the way in which the 
tribes should go up to possess it, the voice of " all 
Israel " was first heard.* When, seven tribes remain- 
ing without their inheritance, three men from each 
tribe were to be deputed to " go through the land 
and describe it, and divide it into seven parts ;" 
they were not sent on their mission till first chosen 
by the people.t When Jepthah was called to take com- 
mand in the war against the children of Ammon 
and to be judge over Israel, he assumed no authori- 
ty till " the people made him head and captain over 
them."t And even when the nation, in their folly and 
disobedience to God, insisted on having a king over 
them ; the crown, during the first and better ages of 
the monarchy, seems not to have been worn till the 
man was made king by the voice of the people, or 
of their representatives acting in their names. From 
these and other examples which might be given, it 
would seem as if every proper occasion had been 
embraced to give a full and repeated sanction to the 

* Deut. 1 : ], 22. f J° sh - * 8 : 3 > 4 - t Jud - n : 1L 



SECOND LECTURE. 63 

great principle, that authority, whether ordinary or 
extraordinary, should emanate from those on whose 
behalf it was to be employed. After what forms 
elections may have been conducted ; how nearly or 
remotely resembling those adopted in modern elective 
governments are inquiries of small moment. They 
do not affect the position, that the officer held his 
office from an acknowledged constituency, and that 
his constituents were those over whom and among 
whom his authority was exercised. # 

* In this connection we may properly advert to the legitimate 
meaning of the term or phrase, " Congregation of Israel,' 1 so fre- 
quently mentioned in the history of the Hebrews. No doubt it some- 
times means all the people numerically considered ; but in many 
cases it evidently means an assembly acting as representatives of 
the people. Acts and proceedings are often attributed to " the 
Congregation ," when from the nature of the occasion the whole 
population could neither have acted nor have been present to act. 
While on the way to Canaan, and at the time of their entrance 
into the promised land, the whole population must have amounted 
to about 2,500,000. Can we suppose this vast multitude to have 
been meant when* it was commanded respecting an offender, " Let 
all the congregation stone him?" Few questions could arise 
requiring more nice and careful discrimination than the right 
of the man-slayer to protection, when he fled to the city of 
refuge. Can we then suppose the whole people, old and young, 
to be meant, when it is said, " Then the congregation shall judge 
between the slayer and the revenger of blood, according to these 
judgments ; and the congregation shall deliver the slayer out of 
the hand of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall res- 
tore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled ?" It was 



64 SECOND LECTURE. 

Another great element of civil freedom is a Judi- 
ciary which provides for the prompt and equal admi- 
nistration of justice between man and man. It has 
been wisely observed, that " the best laws are those 
which are best administered ;" and if you turn to 
the ordinances given by God to the Hebrews for 
carrying the laws of the land into effect, you 
will find them admirably adapted to their end, 
giving equal security to the poor and to the rich 
against violence and wrong. 

Their courts of justice were of various grades; 
some known as High Courts of Appeal ; and others 
so simple and multiplied as to carry the administra- 
tion of justice to every man's door, and effectually 
to secure the parties against that ruinous evil, " the 
law's delay." " Judges and officers shalt thou make 

the " wise men," who alone were competent to act in cases of 
such judicial delicacy and importance. " The Tabernacle of the 
Congregation" was probably so called because it was the place 
where the high authorities of the nation held their sittings and 
deliberations. Such a conventional or technical use of the term 
corresponds with the meaning which we attribute to words of 
similar import, as Assembly, Congress, Convention, &c. When 
we speak of the Assembly of the State of New- York, or of the 
Congress of the United States, we do not mean the whole nume- 
rical population of the State, or of the Nation ; but their repre- 
sentatives, chosen to act on their behalf and in their name. The 
remarks of Michaelis on this subject are so just that I have made 
an extract from them in Note D. 



SECOND LECTURE. 65 

thee in all thy gates," was the command ; and to 
what a minute subdivision this creation of tribunals 
was carried out, you see in another ordinance al- 
ready quoted, directing that there should be " rulers 
over thousands, rulers over hundreds, rulers over 
fifties, and rulers over tens, who should judge the 
people at all seasons/' With a judiciary constructed 
and ramified after this manner, justice could be ad- 
ministered promptly and freely ; and on the other 
hand, a remedy was provided against the evils of 
hasty decisions, which could not fail in the end to 
discover and maintain the right of the case. The 
different courts to w^hich lay the power of appeal, 
were so formed as to preclude undue bias, arising 
from pre-judgment ; and as a last or ultimate resort, 
was the venerable Council of Seventy, who held 
their sittings in the sanctuary, and combined the 
choice w T isdom of the nation, selected with special 
reference to their high trust.*' 

Had I time, I would dwell on those great and 
essential principles of law and equity, according to 
which suits were conducted and decisions rendered 
in all these courts, whether higher or lower. Let me 
simply add, that according to such profound jurists 
and scholars as Sir Matthew Hale, Hooker, Black- 
stone, Sir William Jones, Goguet, Grotius, Michaelis, 
* Note E. 



66 SECOND LECTURE. 

and our own Ames, Marshall, Story and Kent, there 
is not a civilized nation, of either ancient or modern 
times, which has not borrowed from the laws of 
Moses whatever is most essential to the administra- 
tion of justice between man and man, or between 
nation and nation. The rules of evidence in con- 
ducting trials ; the principles upon which verdicts 
should be rendered, both in civil and criminal cases ; 
together with the great institution of Trial by Jury, 
are all found in greater or less development in the 
statutes and ordinances given from God to the He- 
brews ; and just in proportion as they are well un- 
derstood and faithfully carried out, are a community 
safe in their rights, w T hether of person or of property. 
There is still another prominent feature of the 
Hebrew commonwealth, which we will briefly no- 
tice. We here see different tribes so confederated as 
to form one nation. Such a confederacy, we are 
told by accomplished statesmen, is of essential im- 
portance to the stability and strength of a republic 
embracing either a numerous population or an ex- 
tensive territory. In the republics of Italy, as Venice 
and others, we see the evils resulting from the want 
of this federative bond ; and we have examples of its 
happy influence in the United Netherlands, and more 
especially among ourselves in America. The ori- 
ginal model for it, you find among the Hebrews. 



SECOND LECTURE. 6f 

Among them, the twelve tribes might fitly be called 
the Twelve United States, united under one gene- . 
ral government, by a confederacy which rendered 
the nation at large the only legitimate authority for 
purposes of general welfare. But on the other hand, 
a careful examination of their polity and history 
will show that the tribes were not so absorbed by the 
national confederacy, as to lose their character of 
distinct States or communities. They maintained 
within themselves such an organization as furnished 
the most effective safeguards against that centrali- 
zation of power, which has sometimes rendered civil 
freedom an easy prey to a daring usurper, or cost 
rivers of blood to defeat his purposes. 

Here it should be added, that these great ele- 
ments of freedom which we have enumerated, as or- 
dained for the Hebrews, were embodied in a written 
Constitution. No nation can expect to preserve its 
civil privileges unless they are secured and perpe- 
tuated in a record which both rulers and ruled can 
read, to which both can refer, and which is binding 
on both. Accordingly it was enjoined on Joshua, and 
others who succeeded him in authority, that they 
should "observe to do according to all that was writ- 
ten in the Book of the Law." Had the enactments 
promising liberty, safety and justice to the people, 
been left to be handed down by oral tradition or tes- 



68 SECOND LECTURE. 

timony, they would soon have become changed, as 
the will of ambitious or designing rulers might have 
dictated. But here they were rendered stable and 
permanent in a code which might be called the 
Magna Charta of the Hebrew State. 

Such were the essential and leading principles 
of civil freedom in the Hebrew commonwealth ; and 
their happy influence was felt in the nation during 
the long period of four hundred years. The system, 
as a distinct form of government, was introduced by 
Moses at the Mount of Horeb, and lasted during his 
life, the life of Joshua, and the lives of others, who 
successively "judged Israel," until it was superseded 
by the introduction of monarchy in the days of Saul. 
During these four centuries events of paramount 
importance transpired. The whole economy of Old 
Testament worship was ordained and brought into 
general observance, the people w T ere led through the 
wilderness and established in the land promised to 
their fathers, and their name became feared and 
respected by surrounding nations. A succession of 
men were raised up so renowned that their names 
are commemorated and embalmed in the New Tes- 
tament, for their wisdom, their courage, and their 
piety. " What shall I more say ?" says Paul, " for 
the time would fail me to tell you of Gideon, and of 
Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, of David 



SECOND LECTURE. 69 

also, of Samuel and the prophets : who through faith 
subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained 
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the 
violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword ; out 
of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in 
fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." The 
condition of the nation during this period, is seve- 
ral times referred to in their subsequent history as 
pre-eminently distinguished for the faithful respect 
shown to the ordinances of religion, and for the 
general prevalence of prosperity in the land. How- 
ever great may have been the zeal and liberality of 
Josiah for restoring and observing the passover after 
it had been long neglected, the utmost that could be 
said of the occasion was, " surely there was not 
holden such a passover from the days of the judges 
that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of 
Israel, or of the kings of Judah." And when David 
receives assurance of future prosperity to the nation, 
it is described to be such as prevailed when God 
" commanded judges to be over his people Israel." 
The calamities that befel the commonwealth were 
often occasioned by their neglect to maintain the 
government in its entireness, which God had pre- 
scribed for them ; and in every instance their suffer- 
ing and degradation are shown to be in consequence 
of " their turning away from the Lord," in order to 



70 SECOND LECTURE. 

demonstrate by a repeated and convincing record, 
that no people can have civil freedom without true 
religion ; and that where they cease to serve and honor 
the Most High, they prepare the way for anarchy 
within, and for defeat and oppression from without. 
Indeed to impress that truth on the nations of the 
earth, seems to have been one great end for which 
the "Book of Judges " was written/ 

From the view we have taken of the principles 
embodied in the civil Constitution of the Hebrews, 
we see 

1. The error of supposing the Government to have 
been a pure Theocracy. It was a Theocracy only in 
a limited sense. Every reader of their history must 
know that the Hebrews had, like other nations, their 
civil rulers, men who exercised authority over other 
men, and who were acknowledged throughout the 
land as its rightful magistrates. While, then, we 
admit that the Most High, on fitting occasions, claim- 
ed to be the lawgiver, judge and ruler of Israel, 
in a sense peculiar to himself; we hold itto have 
been a part of his divine legislation to frame the 
enactments which show how civil authority of man 
over man should be created, and how it should be 
administered so as best to promote the welfare of a 
people. 

* Note F. 



SECOND LECTURE. 71 

2. Observe the wisdom displayed in the brevity, 
simplicity, and comprehensiveness of the framework 
here ordained for the government of the nation. The 
three great principles which we have found in their 
polity, are : (1,) Election of the rulers by the ruled : 
(2.) A judiciary wisely constructed for the speedy 
and safe administration of justice : And, (3.) A union 
of the tribes under a confederation, well adapted to 
be a safeguard against usurpation from within, and 
to afford protection against invasion from without. 
The wisdom and mercy which fixed these great 
landmarks of human rights and civil freedom, left it 
to man to draw them out into different forms, and 
with different applications, as the various wants and 
circumstances of different nations might require. In 
this way, indeed, all the elementary principles of law 
and justice are revealed in the Bible. God never 
legislates too much, or too little. He leaves scope 
for the study and labors of the wise and the good ; 
and, at the same time, establishes by his express 
authority, those great boundary lines of truth and 
right which may hem in the mind from capital error. 

3. We see what was the sin of the people in 
" asking for a king," " that they might be like all the 
nations, and that their king might judge them, and 
go out before them and fight their battles." There 
is no doubt that there was much sin in the demand. 



72 SECOND LECTURE. 

While Samuel was told to comply with their wishes, 
he was directed to do it under " solemn protest ;" nor 
was their first king well proclaimed till they them- 
selves made the confession, " we have added to all 
our sins this evil, to ask us a king." " I gave thee a 
king in mine anger," said God to the nation ; for in 
his wise and mysterious providence he often makes 
the gratification of a sinful desire a punishment for 
having indulged it. But wherein lay the sinfulness 
of the nation in demanding " a king to reign over 
them?" Not in their having overturned the theo- 
cracy by their wilfulness. The theocracy remained 
as entire under Saul and David, as it had been under 
Moses or Joshua. Their guilt is described in the 
words of God to Samuel : " They have not rejected 
thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not 
reign over them." To reject God, or to refuse to 
have him reign over us, is the scriptural language 
for rejecting or putting dishonor on his ordinances 
and commandments ; and the sin of asking for a 
king, lay in their rejecting the government which 
God had provided for them as a nation, which en- 
sured to them the blessings of Civil Freedom ; and in 
choosing another which subjected them to the evils 
that were the burden and calamity of the kingdoms 
around them. Accordingly, Samuel is directed to 
add to his protest against their choice, a description 



SECOND LECTURE. 73 

of " the manner of the king that should reign over 
them," depicting the tyranny which they were about 
to bring upon themselves, in true and faithful 
colors. " He will take your sons," said the prophet, 
" and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and 
to be his horsemen ; and some shall run before his 
chariots. And he will appoint him captains over 
thousands, and captains over fifties ; and will set 
them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and 
to make his instruments of war, and instruments of 
his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be 
confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. 
And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, 
and your olive-yards, even the best of them, and give 
them to his servants." They were smitten with a 
lust for the trappings and pomp of royalty ; and they 
persisted in their demand for it, though it would 
result, as they were here told, in the wanton violation 
of their domestic enjoyments and private rights, and 
in the surrender of themselves, and of all that they 
now called their own, to the will of the monarch ; 
while, in order to obtain their sinful wish, they threw 
away a government simple in its form, imposing no 
heavy burdens on the people for its support, and pre- 
serving that constant sympathy between the ruler 
and the ruled which can result only from his being 
one of themselves, and chosen by them to his autho- 



74 SECOND LECTURE. 

rity over them. True, the fatal reverse was not felt 
all at once. Corruptions of justice, and the encroach- 
ments of tyranny are always gradually developed in 
a nation. It requires time for them to grow. But 
the root of the tree which produced such bitter fruit 
was planted among the Hebrews when they asked 
and obtained " a king to rule over them." 

4. The theory we have been explaining serves to 
show how, and on what principle resistance to rulers 
becomes lawful and even dutiful. This is a question 
which has excited earnest and bitter controversy. 
When civil liberty was making some of her most 
important advances in England, " the right divine of 
kings to govern wrong" was advocated with un- 
blushing assurance.* Filmer wrote his Patriarcha 
to show that no degree of injustice or oppression, on 
the part of the throne, can justify resistance on the 
part of the subject. Locke brought his powerful 
mind to overthrow this preposterous doctrine of pas- 
sive obedience and non-resistance ; but in his Trea- 
tise on Civil Government he introduced his theory 
of a Social Compact between rulers and ruled, in 
which he would have the duty of obedience to rest 
in a voluntary consent previously given. Later 
writers have objected to this view of the case, be- 
cause such a compact must be in a great degree 
* Note G. 



SECOND LECTURE. 75 

imaginary. We avoid the difficulty, and can, at the 
same time, learn how the subjects of a government 
may lawfully withstand oppression, if we turn to 
the Bible. It does not teach that the mere possession 
of power so renders it the ordinance of God, that it 
should in no case be resisted.* On the contrary, 
much as the sentiment may have been misrepresented, 
resistance to tyrants is sometimes obedience to God. 
By his ordinance, as we have seen, civil authority 
is made a trust from the ruled to the rulers ; a trust 
committed to those who hold it, for a specified ob- 
ject, " for the punishment of evil doers, and the praise 
of them that do well." Of course, authority being of 
the nature of a trust, may be so perverted and abused 
as to annul its own claims to submission. The best, 
and the true mode of conveying this trust, is by the 
election of their rulers by the people themselves. In 
this way, they will generally retain in their own 
hands the most effectual security against continued 
wrong or oppression ; for they can redress themselves 
by a change of rulers, without recourse to violence. 
But if, through folly or misfortune, a people are des- 
titute of this advantage, still, civil authority is not 
the less a trust, according to the appointment of 
God. And if it becomes so abused as to effect the 
injury and not the benefit of the ruled, in such case 
* Note H. 



76 SECOND LECTURE. 

the end of the Most High in ordaining government, 
is defeated by those who were entrusted with it ; 
and a people should feel it to be alike their privilege 
and their duty to resist such oppression, and to obtain 
redress by such means as may be in their power. 
And here will arise a question that can always be 
most safely decided when the occasion arrives that 
calls for the decision. How far Government must 
be perverted from its legitimate object before it 
ceases to have farther claims to allegiance, or at 
what point of oppression resistance becomes either 
wise or dutiful, forms an inquiry which must be left 
to the exercise of a sound wisdom seeking direc- 
tion, from both the word and the providence of 
God. There may be circumstances in which wisdom 
and duty would lead us to endure rather than to 
resist, long after civil government has become op- 
pressive, and has lost all just claim to obedience. 
Resistance without the rational prospect of relief 
would only add to the evil instead of bringing re- 
dress. The fathers of our Republic justified their 
revolt from the authority of the British crown, on the 
principle that there should be no taxation without re- 
presentation. To submit to the former, without pos- 
sessing the latter, they considered as opening the door 
to every species of unrighteous exaction. But when 
they had settled the great point, that resistance was 



SECOND LECTURE. 77 

right in the sight of God, they also looked to their 
means of resisting successfully. The result showed 
the wisdom of their deliberations. Had they failed 
to achieve our independence, their recourse to arms 
would have been accounted treason, and they must 
have paid the penalty with their lives. They pre- 
vailed ; and the Revolution they effected has been 
followed by the formation of a Republic which is 
now a study for the nations of the earth. 

5. From the view we have taken of the Hebrew 
Government, we cannot fail to perceive its great 
superiority over that of other ancient nations, how- 
ever distinguished for their love of freedom. I would 
be far from undervaluing the sages whose names 
brighten the pages of Greek and Roman history. 
According to the light they enjoyed, they did much 
that redounds to their praise. They have left behind 
them sentiments of lofty patriotism which should 
never be forgotten. But they had not the knowledge 
that could enable them to adjust the delicate frame- 
work of national government, so as to ensure effi- 
ciency and stability to the authorities, and yet secure 
the rights of the people from violation. Perhaps no 
one ever exceeded Milton in his relish for all that 
belongs to the wisdom and refinement of Greece and 
Rome ; and yet, when he speaks of their wise men, 
as legislators, he describes them as 



78 SECOND LECTURE. 

" Statists indeed ; 
And lovers of their country, as may seem ; 
But herein to our prophets, far beneath, 
As men divinely taught, and better teaching 
The solid rules of civil government, 
In their majestic, unaffected style, 
Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. 
In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt, 
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so." 

As we endeavor to show in another place, there 
is nothing in which the Greeks and Romans were 
distinguished from other Pagan nations, be it " in 
science or in song," for which they are not more or 
less indebted to the heaven-taught Hebrews ; the 
best achievements of the one being sometimes but 
imperfect copies of models found with the other. 
In nothing is this inferiority more plainly seen than 
in their legislation and their laws for insuring equal 
and just freedom to the whole people. At the very 
time when Rome was boasting loudly of her liberty, 
the people, who formed the great mass of the Com- 
monwealth, were, as a class, studiously excluded 
from the high places of power and emolument ; such 
privileges being reserved for those who could boast 
of Patrician blood and Patrician wealth. Under the 
Hebrew Constitution, the candidate for office might 
be rich or poor, descended from an ancestry either 
known or unknown ; if he was an " able man, loving 



SECOND LECTURE. 79 

truth, and hating eovetousness, and known among 
the tribes " to possess these qualifications, he might 
aspire to the highest office in the State. In the right 
of suffrage, there was as much difference as we find 
in the qualifications of the candidates. Among the 
Hebrews, those who shared in the public burdens 
had a voice in the election of the public officer. In 
Rome, those who bore the heaviest part of the bur- 
dens of the State had generally the least influence 
in deciding who should administer the Government. 
The tribunals for the administration of justice gave 
farther evidence of the superiority of the Hebrew 
Constitution. It provided every reasonable security 
that " the small as well as the great might be heard," 
and equal justice awarded them. Under the Roman 
Judiciary a wide door for corruption was left open, 
rendering the poor and the weak easy victims to the 
rich and the strong. 

6. In this connection, I observe that a careful 
examination of all Republics, whether ancient or 
modern, will serve to show that none of them em- 
brace so fully the great principles of Civil Freedom 
revealed in the Bible as the United States of Ame- 
rica. The Fathers of our Republic may not them- 
selves have been aware of the close resemblance 
between the cardinal features of the Constitution 
which they framed for us, as a nation, and those 



80 SECOND LECTURE. 

which we have seen revealed through the Hebrew 
lawgiver. If so, it is only another proof that the 
destinies of our land have always been under aus- 
pices better and safer than could have sprung from 
human wisdom and human power. 

But as points like these which I have briefly 
mentioned have been ably discussed by men who 
have made the science of Government their special 
study, I pass on to notice another feature in the 
laws of the Hebrew Commonwealth which seems 
not to be so well understood. 

In our day, we hear much concerning the empire 
of public opinion. It is the best and safest of all 
human empires. It is the empire of mind instead of 
brute force, and will always prevail when intelli- 
gence is generally diffused, and thought is free and 
untrammelled. Mere statute law is comparatively 
powerless, if public opinion is against it. Civil 
liberty, too, even if achieved to-day, may be lost to- 
morrow, unless there is accompanying it a sound 
public opinion growing out of general intelligence, 
and an elevated tone of moral sentiment among the 
mass of a people. Hence the great importance of 
those regulations in a community which tend to im- 
prove the standard of public sentiment. Perhaps 
at the time when they are working out their effect 
on the character of a nation, their influence may be 



SECOND LECTURE. 81 

so gradual and silent as not to be perceived. But 
every wise observer must know that causes which 
go to form public opinion, like the drops of rain, 
though of small account when taken separately, yet 
lead to immense results when acting in their aggre- 
gate power. In this view of them, you find the 
wisdom of many laws given to the Hebrews, some 
of which might otherwise appear strange, if not 
ludicrous. 

We should remember that previous to the time 
of which we are now speaking, the Hebrews had 
been an enslaved, and, in many respects, a degraded 
people. To meet their case, and to promote their 
improvement in mind and manners, the Most High 
not only ordained for them a system of intellectual 
training, which we will hereafter consider, but he 
also gave them laws like the following : — 

" If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the 
way, in any tree or on the ground, and the dam sit- 
ting upon the young or upon the eggs, thou shalt 
not take the dam with the young : but thou shalt 
in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to 
thee, that it may be well with thee, and that thou 
mayest prolong thy days." It should be observed 
that the reason annexed to this statute is the same 
which we find added to the fifth command of the 

Decalogue, " Honor thy father and thy mother." 

4 # 



82 SECOND LECTURE. 

The argument used to enforce both the precepts, is, 
" that it may be well with thee, and that thou may- 
est prolong thy days ;" thus showing that there must 
be some intimate connection between the two. And 
if any of us have seen the distress of a bird, " the 
dam," when her nest is rifled of her young, her ma- 
ternal tenderness rendering her an easy prey as she 
rushes within the grasp of the spoiler ; you can see 
the beautiful moral to be found in the law forbid- 
ding the Hebrew to take " the dam " when he is 
carrying away her young from the nest ; and how it 
bears on the obedience to be rendered to the com- 
mand, " Honor thy father and thy mother." It was 
designed to cultivate a high regard for parental feel- 
ing. No advantage must be taken of it, says God ; 
it must always be treated with a tender respect, 
though it be the maternal anxiety of a bird of the 
air when distressed for her offspring. 

A man who can sport with parental sympathy 
gives sure proof of a hard and corrupted heart. We 
can all remember how we have abhorred the tyrant 
Gessler in the unnatural task which he laid on the 
patriot William Tell. The hero was required as the 
ransom for his own life, to place an apple on the 
head of his son ; and then standing at the utmost 
distance of a bowshot, to cleave the apple in two 
* Note I. 



SECOND LECTURE. 83 

with an arrow. The feat was performed : and when 
Gessler perceived that another arrow remained in the 
hand of the father, and inquired for what purpose it 
was intended, he was told, " Sir, the second arrow 
was for your heart, if the first had even touched my 
dear boy." And had this been the issue, few would 
have mourned the fate of the tyrant after he had 
thus wantonly outraged the affection of a father. 
There is a wrong mode of doing even that which 
is right and which may convert it into a positive 
evil. Charity is sometimes bestowed on the poor 
with a manner that renders the gift not only offen- 
sive in the sight of God, but a source of more bitter 
pain to the receiver than the pinchings of want. To 
cherish a suitable and right spirit in deeds of bene- 
volence, it was commanded, " When ye reap the 
harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the 
corn out of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the 
gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean 
thy vineyards, neither shalt thou gather every grape 
of the vineyard ; thou shalt leave them for the poor 
and the stranger. I am the Lord your God." This 
precept was to remind the Hebrews, that the poor 
should be allowed to share in the comforts as well 
as in the absolute necessaries of life, inasmuch as a 
share in the produce of both the "vineyard" and 
"field" must be allowed to them ; and that, as po- 



84 SECOND LECTURE. 

verty has its feelings of delicacy as well as wealthy 
instead of obliging the destitute to come and confess 
to us their need, and receive alms at our hands and 
in our sight, they should be allowed the opportuni- 
ty of gaining relief when no eye would be upon 
them but the eye of God, and, in a way that seemed 
to render it in part the reward of their own labor. 
In close alliance with this, is another command- 
ment. " No man shall take the upper or the nether 
mill-stone to pledge ; for he taketh a man's life to 
pledge." Here the principle is established which is 
recognized in all civilized and Christian nations, that 
a man cannot be deprived of a necessary means of 
sustaining life for himself and his family, by distraint 
for debt. But see also what is added as to pledges 
that might be taken for payment. " When thou 
dost lend thy brother any thing, thou shalt not go 
into his house to fetch his pledge ; thou shalt stand 
abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend, shall 
bring out the pledge abroad unto thee." Want must 
have been sorely felt before a man will pledge that 
which properly belongs to, and forms a part of his 
home. Hence the Hebrew was told, you must not 
go into his house, to pain his feelings and the feel- 
ings of his family, by witnessing the tokens of their 
destitution, or the distress they may suffer at parting 
with some long possessed and much valued article 



SECOND LECTURE. 85 

of their furniture. No, said the law, you must stand 
without, till the man bring abroad to thee whatever 
is pledged, that the hardship may be as little felt as 
the nature of the case will admit. 

Again, it is ordained, " Thou shalt not oppress a 
hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be 
of thy brethren, or of the strangers that are within 
thy gates. At his day thou shalt give him his hire, 
neither shall the sun go down upon it, for he is poor 
and setteth his heart upon it." There is a principle 
of mingled kindness and justice involved in this or- 
dinance, which many masters in our day would do 
well to remember. Too often are the feelings of 
servants exasperated, and their interests made to suf- 
fer, not by ultimately wronging them out of their 
wages, but by vexatious delays to pay them what 
has been earned by their faithful labor. To induce 
the master both to respect the anxieties, and satisfy 
the just claims of his servant, it is here commanded, 
" At his day thou shalt give him his hire, for he set- 
teth his heart upon it. 9 ' 

To give a few more examples : it furnishes cer- 
tain evidence of high moral sentiment, and is a most 
efficient means of promoting it, when all classes in 
a community evince due respect for age. Hence the 
command, " Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, 
and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy 



86 SECOND LECTURE. 

God." Not only justice, but kindness to a stranger, 
showing both a sympathy for his feelings and a due 
regard for his rights, is another of those proprieties 
of life which denote the same cultivated spirit in a 
people. Accordingly it was enjoined, " Ye shall nei- 
ther vex a stranger nor oppress him ; for ye know 
the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in 
the land of Egypt." A disposition to ridicule or take 
advantage of those who are deformed, or labor under 
some bodily infirmity, both show r s and produces 
coarseness of mind and hardness of heart. Hence 
the command, " Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor 
put a stumbling-block before the blind: but shalt 
fear thy God." To be in the habit of approaching 
falsehood, though not actually committing the crime, 
must inevitably destroy a nice and proper sense of 
truth, and in the end bring the mind to the actual 
commission of what had thus become familiar to its 
view. Accordingly it was commanded, " Thou shalt 
not raise a false report — keep thee far from a false 
matter." 

These are some of the statutes by which the 
national mind in the Hebrew Commonwealth was 
trained to a high standard of public sentiment ; im- 
parting to all classes a sensibility to the proprieties 
of life, and a spontaneous regard to its relative 
duties, which, in some degree, render a people a 



SECOND LECTURE. 8^ 

law unto themselves. To produce and perpetuate 
such a governing power, the power of opinion, is the 
very essence of wise legislation ; and in proportion 
to its strength and prevelance among a people, will 
the foundations of civil freedom be strong and 
enduring. 

In the view of our subject, thus spread before 
you, we observe, 

As the Bible contains the origin of civil liberty, by 
the Bible alone can it be sustained. The law seems 
to be of general application, that wherever we find 
the source of existence, there also we find the ali- 
ment of growth and strength. It is so with the herb 
of the field, with man himself, and with every bless- 
ing he enjoys, whether personal or social, civil or 
religious. What we may infer from the analogy of 
the case, we are taught by the evidence of facts — 
facts of ancient and of modern times, gathered from 
every quarter of the globe where freedom either 
still holds her blessed sway, or, after struggling 
for existence, has finally perished. It is the decree 
of Him who has ordained that light shall shine 
from the sun, that liberty and the Bible shall always 
be found united : and " what God hath joined to- 
gether let not man put asunder." There can be no 
divorce from this union. If the Bible goes, liberty 
follows. How was it in the land of the Hebrews ? 



88 SECOND LECTURE. 

When the Most High gave them civil freedom, he 
gave them also the Bible of that day with it ; and 
when they abandoned or neglected the one, they lost 
the other also. In the language of their own history, 
" It was when the law of the Lord was not found" 
in the hands of magistrates and people that the sun 
of their prosperity waned, and waned till it went 
down in darkness and blood. 

And how comes it, that in modern times, on our 
own Continent, at our very doors, we have seen 
Province after Province throwing off the yoke of 
foreign dominion ; and yet, in their efforts to acquire 
civil freedom, they " sow to the wind, and reap the 
whirlwind ?" And why, still farther, has the experi- 
ment been so successful with us as a nation, which 
has been so fruitless, or rather so disastrous with 
them? It is because ours is a land of Bibles, and theirs 
is not ; because here the Holy Book is in the hands" 
of the high and the low, the rich and the poor, sway- 
ing, elevating and purifying public sentiment in 
minds, even where it does not sanctify the heart ; 
and there its pages are sealed to the eyes of the 
people, and they are left sunk in the pollution and 
gloom from which no other power but this " light 
shining in a dark place" can redeem them. 

Let the Bible go through the world, as it is yet 
to go, and it will show itself equally powerful to re- 



SECOND LECTURE. 89 

generate the hearts of sinful men, and the spirit of 
degraded nations. Already, in this day of holy zeal 
for its spread, it has been carried very far into the 
regions of Pagan darkness ; and in every place 
where it has quickened into life souls that " were 
dead in trespasses and sins," it has created also a 
new dwelling-place for freedom ; till the earth is 
now bespangled with miniature republics, as the sky 
with stars ; and which are yet to spread and widen 
till every form of tyranny shall crumble before them. 
But, on the other hand, while this blessing shall be 
sent to lands now destitute of it, if those who already 
possess it allow the streams of corruption to spread 
within their borders, which always follow the dis- 
belief and neglect of the sacred volume, then is 
their glory departed ; and they too must be added to 
the nations whose names are written in the dust. 
" The wages of sin is death," says the oracle of God ; 
and it is equally true, whether, it be the sin of a man, 
or the sin of a people. You find the monuments of 
the sad truth in every age, and in every region of 
the world. For, go where you will, search where 
you will on the face of this wide earth, you are 
treading on the sepulchres not only of men but of 
nations ; nations that once were in their glory, but 
now are numbered among the lost. 

And what can be that worse than lethiferous 



90 SECOND LECTURE. 

wand that has destroyed, by its touch, empire after 
empire, state after state, till the earth has become 
thus filled and strewed with their fragments ? Is it 
time that has done it all ? Time ! what is time ? 
Time has no power of its own ; and even with all 
the aid it can gain from earth, air or sea to make 
war upon man, or his works, it can spread no 
ravages that man, if faithful to himself, is unable to 
repair. No ! no ! It was not time that buried Baby- 
lon and her proud towers so deep in the earth, 
that scarce a remnant is left to show where once 
she stood. It was not time that prostrated the lofty 
columns, the triumphant arches, and vast temples 
of Roman grandeur and power. Far, very far from 
it. It was the moral corruption of the people ; it 
was the mocking guilt of man against the God 
that made him, which has thus desolated kingdoms 
and nations, till the strongest and mightiest have 
passed away as "a dream when one awaketh." 
The story of the cities of the plain is the story of 
them all from that day onward. Their " iniquity 
was pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idle- 
ness : neither did they strengthen the hand of the 
poor and needy ;" and " because their sin was very 
grievous and the cry of it had gone up to Heaven," 
He rained down upon them a desolation that has 
engulphed them in its abyss to this day. And whe- 



SECOND LECTURE. 91 

ther it be kingdoms or commonwealths, in the- 
old world or in the new, if they become corrupt, 
emptied of piety towards God and righteousness 
towards man, they have in their hands " the cup of 
trembling," which will in the end become to them 
the cup of death. With every nation that turns 
away from truth and from right the future is plain 
to our eyes as the past. 

My hearers : it then requires no " hand- writing 
on the walls " of this Capitol to announce what lies 
before our now privileged nation. It is revealed in 
letters of light, and so plainly that "he who runs 
may read." And what, let me ask, are " the signs of 
the times " which are to be seen in the skies that 
overspread our land ? Are they portentous of evil, 
or do they promise good ? That clouds are visi- 
ble, many will admit. But clouds are not always 
the harbingers of harm. Do the clouds we see 
rising, threaten a coming tempest that will spread 
desolation ; or do they bear in their bosom the re- 
freshing shower, and ^when passing away are they 
to be followed by a new bow of promise? It all cen- 
ters here. We can hope to be a happy nation, a free 
nation, only so long as we are a Christian nation. 
Let this Bible be abandoned by our people ; espe- 
cially let it be shut out from the hearts and coun- 
sels of our rulers ; and if these noble halls are not 



92 SECOND LECTURE. 

profaned by the ruthless hand of some Vandal 
conqueror, they may be stained by the blood of 
civil strife, in which the hand of brother is turned 
against brother. But so long as the Holy Book 
shall be held in high honor in our Houses of Le- 
gislation, our Cabinet Councils, and our Courts of 
Justice, the nation, with all that forms her real glory, 
is safe ; the ark of the covenant is still with her, 
and she stands strong against every foe, for she 
stands in the strength of God. In every crisis which 
marks her history, she will be found to possess a 
sustaining and redeeming power, that will carry her 
triumphantly through ; and whether the storms that 
beat upon the towers of her strength may arise from 
dissensions within or invasions from without, she 
will find protection and peace " under the shadow 
of his wings," who alike " stilleth the noise of the 
seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the 
people" 



THIRD LECTURE. 



" The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, 
prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in 
the desert a highway for our God. Every valley 
shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be 
made low ; and the crooked shall be made straight, 
and the rough places plain ; and the glory of the Lord 
shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together : 
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." The spi- 
rit and beauty of the language well befit the impor- 
tance of the truth it was designed to convey. Its pri- 
mary reference is to the advent of the Redeemer, and 
to the preparation which was made for his coming 
and for his work, under the ministry of his fore- 
runner John the Baptist. But "to prepare his 
way" so that his wisdom and goodness might be 
clearly revealed in the preparation he makes, has 
been a uniform rule of his procedure in all the great 
revolutions which he produces in the affairs of men. 
In the various works of his hands, he is a careful 
observer of his own laws. He acts through means 
adequate to their end. He does everything in its 
season, calls it forth in its due order and connexion. 



94 THIRD LECTURE. 

He gives " first the blade, then the ear, then the 
full corn in the ear." Thus growth, as he pro- 
duces it, is healthful and enduring; whether it 
be growth in man or in the mind of man ; whether 
growth in nations, or in any of those attainments 
which add to their strength and prosperity. With 
him, a wise preparation is the first step leading to a 
happy consummation. 

How widely different from this do we often find 
the designs and efforts of men ! They would have * 
the ripe corn, when they should scarcely expect the 
blade. They demand the vigor and maturity of 
manhood when there has not been time for a health- 
ful growth from infancy to youth. Many an excel- 
lent object of benevolence has been defeated and 
lost by bringing it forward out of season, and urg- 
ing it beyond measure. New wine has been put into 
old bottles, and the bottles have burst, and both have 
been destroyed. This inconsiderate haste, this 
"plucking at the pear before it is ripe" is one of 
the prevailing evils of our age, and involves inqui- 
ries which ought to be well examined both by " the 
leaders of thought and the rulers of men." Un- 
less correct and rational views are entertained 
on the subject, every device for the amelioration 
of our race, and especially for their political ad- 
vantage or advancement, must be perpetually at 



THIRD LECTURE. 95 

fault. A nation, like an individual, needs educa- 
tion and time to prepare them for self-government. 
Many old associations must be broken up, and 
new associations formed ; the popular mind must be 
trained to new conceptions, new channels of thought, 
and new standards of right, before men can appre- 
ciate the value, understand the responsibilities or 
discharge the duties of civil freedom. If they grasp 
after it without such a preparation for it, they are 
grasping after a shadow, or what may be worse. 
Their freedom " falsely so called," will degenerate 
into anarchy and profligacy, from which they* will 
perhaps seek refuge by again submitting to a harden- 
ed despotism, as the least of two evils. Accordingly, 
when God gave the Hebrews a revelation of his 
will, which established a new platform for the action 
of rulers and ruled, he prepared the nation for enjoy- 
ing and preserving the privileges he bestowed on 
them, by means to which we will now invite your 
attention. 

The first of these preparatory steps was to order 
their migration to another country ', their departure 
from Egypt and their settlement in Palestine. Let 
us look with some care at the importance which the 
word and the providence of God assign to this point, 
migration, or change of abode, when he is about to 
elevate the moral and intellectual condition of a peo- 



96 THIRD LECTURE. 

pie. We may here find a striking parallel between 
the history of the Hebrew nation and of our own. 

Enlightened physiologists very generally teach, 
that, to a great extent, all the varieties of life, whe- 
ther in the vegetable or animal world, are improved 
by a change of place, by being transferred to a new 
region and a new atmosphere. Races or families of 
plants have been known to become extinct from be- 
ing kept too long in the same soil ; the shepherd has 
seen his flock pine away from the want of a new 
pasture ground ; and how the bodies of men are in- 
vigorated by like changes, is an every-day observa- 
tion. But I would now speak more directly as to the 
effect of migration on the moral and mental condi- 
tion of a people. 

We all know something as to the influence of 
local associations. They not only shape our tastes 
and desires, but they also have at times a most 
controlling power to warp and pervert the mind. 
We may have seen the plant or the tree taking root 
in the cleft, or on the side of a rock. It is often 
made to grow out of shape from the circumstances 
of its situation. As it rises it is met by some pro- 
jecting crag, or it is bent down by some overhang- 
ing fragment, around which it grows, and thus is 
distorted from its natural form and beauty. So is it 
with the human mind. It is influenced and directed 



THIRD LECTURE. 97 

by surrounding circumstances. Its opinions are of- 
ten formed so as to accommodate themselves to long 
existing evils ; and, like the tree, grasping and adher- 
ing to the point of rock that had marred the beauty 
of its growth ; so also will the mind often embrace 
and cling to the very errors and wrongs which had 
deformed and depressed it. 

Would you remedy this, you must do with the 
man as you would with the herb or the tree. You 
must transplant them both to another soil. You must 
break up old associations. You must free the man 
from his familiar and habitual contact with long 
existing abuses, and enable him to view them at 
such a distance as to comprehend their magnitude 
and deformity. Paths of thought can become so 
beaten, and the mind so worn into them, that it can 
see nothing beyond them ; and if you would give 
a man new and improved views, you must take 
him where he can overlook the barriers that once 
confined his vision. The freshness, the vigor, the 
elastic spring which are imparted by such a change 
to the mind and the character, whether of a man 
or a people, are the result of those great laws by 
which the Most High governs life in all its forms. 

Now observe how uniformly he respects this 
principle in his most conspicuous movements for the 
instruction and improvement of man as a rational 



98 THIRD LECTURE. 

and immortal being. There are two great periods in 
Old Testament times, when he was pleased to make 
special revelations of his will for this end. The 
first was at the call of Abraham, the commencement 
of what is styled the Patriarchal dispensation ; du- 
ring which the oracles of God, and the ordinances of 
his worship were known and preserved in the family 
of that patriarch. And what was the first command 
which God laid on Abraham when he was about to 
elevate him in knowledge and religion above all 
around him ? It was, " Get thee out of thy country, 
and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, 
unto a land that I will show thee : And I will make 
of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and 
make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a blessing." 
He had hitherto dwelt in Ur of the Chaldees, a chief 
seat of the idolatries and other evil practices of that 
ancient people ; and now when he was about to be- 
come a new man, and to acquire a new name, he is 
directed at once to seek a new home. And to this 
do we find Prophets and Apostles afterwards refer- 
ring as the first step which led to his subsequent 
greatness as " the friend of God," and the " Father 
of the Faithful." 

When the Mosaic dispensation was made to suc- 
ceed the Patriarchal, a still farther impulse was 
given to the cause of knowledge and righteousness 



THIRD LECTURE. 99 

in the world by new revelations from God, showing 
more clearly than ever, the way of salvation through 
a Redeemer ; and giving to the great principles of 
moral law the form and extent which they retain to 
this day. It was an era of vast magnitude in the 
condition and history of the human race, when the 
"two tables of stone," inscribed with the Decalogue, 
were given from Sinai, followed by the institutions 
which were " the example and shadow of heavenly 
things." Prom that day forward men began to enjoy 
" a better hope" towards God, and to feel new res- 
ponsibilities in all their relations to each other, whe- 
ther domestic, civil or religious. Accordingly, when 
God was about to render the Hebrews the depositaries 
of this world-enriching and world-reforming know- 
ledge, he led them, as he had before led Abraham, 
from their former abode, and transferred them to a 
new country ; a country where all was new to them ; 
a new soil, new scenery, a new atmosphere ; in one 
sense, a new heaven and a new earth ; where new 
vigor might be imparted to both mind and body for 
the more perfect discharge of their newly revealed 
duties to God and to man. 

Passing by other examples showing the influence 
of migration, and which occur in the history of the 
church and of the world, let us look more carefully 
at the removal of the Hebrews into the land pro- 



100 THIRD LECTURE. 

raised to their fathers, and we shall find still farther 
designs of wisdom and mercy in it. It would have 
been migration to a new home, had God led them 
from Egypt to India or China. Indeed there were 
countries on every side, where all would have been 
as new to them as in the land of Canaan. We ask 
then, was there anything in the character or situa- 
tion of this land, which rendered it better adapted 
than others to display his designs of mercy to the 
nation, and through them to the world at large ? 

We would naturally suppose there was some 
good reason for the selection, if we reflect upon the 
manner in which it was promised to Abraham as 
the future abode of his descendants, when they 
should be multiplied into a great nation. It seems 
in that day to have been the Paradise of the world. 
It is repeatedly named, as a " land flowing with milk 
and honey," an expression describing not only extra- 
ordinary fertility, but also fertility in everything 
which contributes to either the health or enjoyments 
of man. " I am come down," says God, " to deliver 
my people, and to bring them up out of the land of 
Egypt, into a good land, and a large, unto a land 
flowing with milk and honey." We have a still 
more full description of it, when Moses tells the peo- 
ple, then near the end of their journeyings in the 
wilderness ; " For the Lord thy God bringeth thee 



THIRD LECTURE. 101 

into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of foun- 
tains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills ; 
a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, 
and pomegranates ; a land of oil olive and honey ; 
a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarce- 
ness, thou shalt not lack anything in it ; a land 
whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou 
mayest dig brass." 

How far these promises of unparalleled fer- 
tility were realized, we learn from the teeming 
millions of inhabitants which the land sustained 
when the nation had full and undisturbed possession 
of it. But multitudes are not always strength, and 
we have but to glance at the descriptions given of 
it, in order to see how peculiarly the distinguishing 
features of the country were adapted to elicit those 
powers and faculties of body and mind which are 
the best strength and glory of a nation. 

Productive labor, and especially labor which 
draws from the earth her abundant stores, is not 
only the great source of national wealth, but also a 
great means of spreading physical and moral health 
through the mass of a people. The land of the He- 
brews yielded comparatively little as spontaneous 
growth ; but responded most bountifully to the labor 
of industry, especially the industry of the husband- 
man. It was not like the plains of other climes where 



102 THIRD LECTURE. 

the earth of its own accord does so much that the 
inhabitants need do nothing ; and where every pow- 
er of the man becomes torpid and feeble through inac- 
tion. But to render it fruitful, it was to be tilled 
and cultivated, the abundance of its returns depend- 
ing on the abundance and faithfulness of the labor 
bestowed, a land best of all others adapted to impart 
a spirit of activity, vigor, sagacity and independence 
to the inhabitants. 

Still more ; no observer of human nature can 
question the influence of surrounding scenery on the 
intellect of a people, especially of the more intel- 
lectual classes. This was not overlooked by the 
Most High when he removed the Hebrews to their 
new home. It was then a part of his design to en- 
large the boundaries of human knowledge, to give 
new revelations of wisdom through his prophets; 
and he kindled within them the soul of eloquence 
and song, that the truths which they were sent to 
teach might be clothed in the rich and glowing lan- 
guage, and illustrated by the splendid and expressive 
imagery, which all future ages might feel and un- 
derstand. Accordingly he planted the Hebrews 
amid scenery of such mingled beauty and sublimity 
as might well impart a higher elevation and tone to 
every faculty of the mind. Judging from the very 
face of the chosen land, it was just the place in 



THIRD LECTURE. 103 

which the writers of the Bible ought to have lived ; 
for it furnished those materials of thought and 
promptings of the heart that could have been found 
no where else. Even when its palmy days were 
past, a heathen writer calls it, " a land of charms 
and graces ;" and long as it has been trodden down 
and defaced by Saracen and Turk, travellers tell us 
that in its rich and varied beauties, though like 
beauty in a shroud, it is still what the Prophet has 
called it, " the glory of all lands." 

As another advantage, we might allude to the 
natural barriers which surrounded it as a protection 
against hostile invasion. On every side it was en- 
closed by seas, by mountains, or by deserts. But 
we hasten to look at. 

Its geographical position in reference to the 
other countries of the whole eastern hemisphere, 
and to observe how admirable were its local advan- 
tages for becoming the central point of illumination 
to them all ; a fountain whence streams of know- 
ledge might flow, with most ease and most rapidity, 
to a benighted world. "From the wilderness and 
this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river 
Euphrates, and unto the great sea toward the go- 
ing down of the sun, shall be your coast," says 
God, when describing the boundaries of the Pro- 
mised Land. Its western border was the head 



104 THIRD LECTURE. 

waters of the Mediterranean, furnishing access to 
the whole southern coast of Europe, and the 
whole northern coast of Africa ; on the eastern 
border was the Euphrates, which emptied into the 
Indian Ocean, and thus opened their way to the 
whole southern coast of Asia. The design of the 
Most High in giving the Hebrews this commanding 
position, rendering them so like " a city set upon a 
hill," is perhaps too much overlooked. They were 
far from being an insulated people, unknown and 
unfelt by other kingdoms of the world. So widely 
had their fame spread in the reign of Solomon, that 
not only the Queen of Sheba, " with a very great 
company," but " all the kings of the earth," as we 
are told, " sought his presence to hear his wisdom " 
and become instructed in the laws and ordinances 
which he so prosperously administered. Jerusalem 
Was more than the Athens of its day. The richest 
store-house of knowledge for the world was then in 
the hands of the Hebrews, and from them other na- 
tions were ambitious to be learners. To accord with 
this design respecting them, God fixed their abode. 
As he set up their laws and institutions for the study 
of other nations, he planted them in a country so 
centra], that all might have ready access to it, and 
that the wisdom they possessed from him, might be 
made to flow most readily to every people. 



THIRD LECTURE. 105 

Here also we should add that a time had now 
come which rendered this influence most seasonable 
and needful. There are periods in the history of the 
world, when iniquity becomes so rife that earth can 
no longer bear it, nor will Heaven consent longer to 
behold it ; and when it must either be wiped away 
by the unsparing destruction of those who have thus 
filled up the measure of their iniquity, as was done 
at the time of the deluge; or there must be some 
corrective applied which will lessen if not remedy 
the prevalence of crime. When the Hebrews were 
planted in Canaan, the iniquity of the Amorites " was 
now full ;" and so was it also with other kingdoms of 
that day. Corruption in every form reigned without 
control. Wrong and cruelty among men, and igno- 
rance and impiety towards God, w T ere everywhere 
spread abroad, until it might again have " repented 
God that he had made man ;" and had it not been 
for the healing and restraining waters that went 
forth from the Holy Land, another deluge might 
have been sent to " destroy man from the face of 
the earth," and all the inhabited globe been " made 
like unto Sodom and Gomorrah." 

In what forms, and to what extent this reforming 
influence was felt among surrounding nations, both 
in that, and in succeeding ages, we will hereafter 
more fully show. I must, for the present, pass by 



106 THIRD LECTURE. 

these and other topics, that I may reserve more room 
for an application of the subject as already explained, 
and which every one will admit to be especially 
seasonable. 

The motto in our national ensign, " E Pluribus 
Unum," seems to have a prophetic meaning perhaps 
not contemplated by the venerable men who adopted 
it. We are not only one commonwealth formed out 
of many states, but we are one people gathered from 
many nations. The sentiment pervades the civiliz- 
ed world, and we cannot change it if we would, that 
here is the emigrant's home ; that our western hemis- 
phere, and especially our portion of it, is designed 
to be an asylum for the oppressed of the eastern ; 
and that races of the human family which there 
have become worn out and effete, are here to be 
restored by a new growth. Such indeed seems to 
be one of the purposes which we are appointed to 
fulfil in the great drama of nations ; and we believe 
the time is at hand when we are to see a new and 
farther development of it. Hitherto, the " sons of 
the stranger" have come to us chiefly from the coun- 
tries of Europe, landing on the shores of the Atlantic. 
Only a few years more are to pass by, and our coast 
on the Pacific will be alive with emigrants from the 
over-peopled regions of China and Japan, led to seek 
a new home where they can find more room and a 



THIRD LECTURE. 107 

bettered condition. But whether these crowds come 
from the East or from the West, we do not share in 
the melancholy forebodings which some feel as to 
the result. The union of such masses into one peo- 
ple congregated from various countries, always pro- 
duces an improved type of man ; while nations that 
"dwell alone and apart" fall back into imbecility 
and insignificance. An early vigor was given to 
Greece by the fusion of the Phoenicians and Egyp- 
tians with the Hellenistic tribes ; and it was the mix- 
ture of the Saxons and Danes with the ancient Bri- 
tons, followed by the commingling of the Normans 
with them all, that has led to English preponderance 
in arts and in arms for so long a period, and through 
so many regions of the globe. In this way conquest, 
notwithstanding its barbarities, has sometimes been 
overruled for the good of even the vanquished them- 
selves. 

But in this favored land, the commingling of races 
and its happy results are not purchased at so bloody 
a price. The invaders, if such they are to be called, 
come not as enemies, but as friends ; not to demand 
possession of the country from its inhabitants, but to 
ask the privilege of uniting their wisdom and strength 
with ours, to give increased value to " much land 
which yet remains to be possessed." Nor should it 
be forgotten in this connection, that the strangers 



108 THIRD LECTURE. 

now coming in fresh crowds to dwell within our 
gates, are not so often the refuse or the surplus, as 
the bone and sinew of the countries from which the 
rod of oppression has driven them to seek a home 
where they can dwell in the enjoyment of freedom 
and plenty. In all this we see only a continuance 
of what has been the character and history of our 
nation from its beginning. There is much poetic 
beauty combined with important truth in the obser- 
vation made by one of the most distinguished among 
our early divines, that " God sifted three nations for 
seed to sow the virgin soil of America ;" and we 
need but to look at the leading characteristics of our 
various ancestors to perceive how happily they com- 
bine to form a people distinguished for power and 
greatness. It was the enduring strength and activity 
of the Anglo-Saxon, united to the staid caution and 
gravity of the Hollander, qualified by the elastic 
spirit of the French Huguenot, forming one people, 
and holding in the main to one religious faith, that 
first peopled our land and spread over it the blessings 
of Christianity and civilization. If they found it new 
and ready for any impression they might give it, 
they engraved on its face, features that no lapse of 
time can obliterate. They came to it, to erect a new 
empire, and to present to the world, government 
both civil and religious, in new aspects. They un- 



THIRD LECTURE. 109 

dertook a great work, and they laid the foundations 
deep. They had faith to do what God commanded, 
to go where his finger pointed ; and He sent his 
" pillar of fire by night, and of cloud by day," to lead 
and to shelter them. Under difficulties and dangers 
which surrounded them, and from which many 
would have shrunk, he trained them for achieve- 
ments which but few can ever equal. " A waste 
howling wilderness " lay before them ; but " with 
the axe in their hand, the Bible in their pocket, and 
the encyclopedia at their side," they began their la- 
bors, and the wilderness became changed into a 
fruitful field. And surveying the land to which he 
brought them, in the vast length and breadth into 
which it has now spread, how aptly does it seem des- 
cribed in the language of Moses, already quoted con- 
cerning the country of the Hebrews : — " It is a good 
land and a large, a land of brooks of water, of foun- 
tains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, 
a land of wheat and barley, of vines and honey : — a 
land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills 
thou mayest dig brass." 

Except as to the larger scale on which everything 
with us is laid out, there is a very striking parallel 
between the land of Israel as here described, and our 
own. What advantages had they which we have 
not; whether contributing to their happiness and 



110 THIRD LECTURE. 

safety at home, or facilitating their influence for good 
among nations abroad ? 

We have seen the abundance and variety in 
which their land yielded its produce to the labors of 
industry, and which distinguished it as " the glory of 
all lands," in its day. Our own country is so new 
that we have as yet examined only its surface. We 
can scarce be said to have commenced the experi- 
ments for testing the fecundity of the soil, or for ex- 
ploring and ascertaining the stores of mineral wealth 
that lie hidden in its mines. And yet even at this 
day when its resources are so imperfectly deve- 
loped, compare it with England, France, Spain, or 
any one country of modern times, and we must 
see how greatly it surpasses them in the variety 
and extent of its productions. Stretching through 
climes of every temperature, it produces every grain, 
plant, or fruit that can be desired for the suste- 
nance of man, or the healthful gratification of his 
appetite. It yields every material for clothing that 
can minister to comfort or ornament, it has stored 
within its bowels every mineral which most effec- 
tually ministers to the strength and safety of a 
people ; and then we have to add, that all these rich 
and various stores are gained only by the labor 
which renders them twice a blessing. With us it 



THIRD LECTURE. Ill 

is " the hand of the diligent that maketh rich ; "' and 
nothing else, nothing less can do it. 

We showed also, how the face of their country 
and its associations, furnished excitement and cul- 
tivation to the intellectual faculties of the Hebrews. 
With us also, mind in all its varieties has new 
scope and ample nutriment. Thought, and commu- 
nication of thought, are free as the air. Intellect 
is rendered alert and bounding by the vast and in- 
viting fields that are yet to be explored and im- 
proved ; while the taste and fancy of our artists 
and poets and orators are heightened by the gran- 
deur and beauty which are spread over the face of 
the country, in its lofty mountains, its majestic 
rivers, its wide plains and seas. The materials 
and the excitement of thought are furnished by the 
scenery that environs us throughout our borders. 

As to security against invasion from foreign 
foes ; it was scarcely more true that " Israel dwelt 
in safety and alone, and was not numbered among 
the nations," than it is true of us as a people. The 
wide ocean rolls between us and the kingdoms 
which have long proved restless and dangerous 
neighbors to each other ; nor is there a moral pos- 
sibility of a nation growing up at our side, with 
strength to endanger our peace and our safety. On 
the contrary, every few years sees our territory 



112 THIRD LECTURE. 

widened and making fresh accessions to the strength 
of the nation ; nor is this done by conquest, subject- 
ing our neighbors to a colonial dependance, which 
they would improve the first opportunity to throw 
off. They come to us of their own will. They knock 
at our doors for adoption, as members of the nation- 
al household, promising allegiance to our authority, 
while they ask for protection from our power.* 

But there is still another point of the parallel 
worthy of distinct notice. It lies in the local advan- 
tages possessed by this country for easy and speedy 
access to all the most important nations of the earth. 
In this respect, we sustain, in a remarkable degree, 
the same relation to the world at large, in which, as 
we have seen, the Hebrews stood to the Eastern 
Hemisphere. Look at the extent of ocean which 
washes our shores from North to South, furnishing 
us with the readiest communication with every na- 
tion of our own continent. Look also at the broad 
Atlantic, which carries us to the door of every great 
nation in Western Europe. But still more, look in 
a different direction, and to what, until lately, has 
been less observed. Turn your eyes towards the vast 
and populous Empires of China and India, which 
have hitherto been reached both by Europeans and 
ourselves, after long and circuitous voyages, over 
* Note K. 



THIRD LECTURE. 113 

seas and around capes, that have been strewed with 
wrecks, till they have been made frightful Golgothas, 
for the mariners and merchandise of all civilized 
nations. The highway of commerce to those rich 
countries of the East, will not much longer be around 
the southern point of Africa, or under the burning 
Equator. A wiser and a safer way is fast revealing 
itself to the sagacious observer of events and de- 
velopments in the present generation. Steam has 
now shown that it can be rendered quite as effective 
for the navigation of oceans as of rivers ; and the 
wide Pacific, rolling between our western shores 
and the nations of Eastern Asia, seems formed by 
the Creator for the ocean steamer. Its numberless 
islands, that give life and variety to its bosom, are 
just the opportune resting places or depots to fur- 
nish what the vessel needs as she wings her way 
across its broad expanse of waters ; and we have only 
to cast our eyes over the surface of our whole globe 
and observe the points of distance which separate 
both Europe and America from Eastern Asia, in 
order to see how inevitably our country, with its 
cities on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, must soon 
become the great thoroughfare of wealth and know- 
ledge travelled by the civilized world. I speak of a 
change which neither war, nor violence, nor cunning 
diplomacy, can be required to accomplish ; but which 



114 THIRD LECTURE. 

will be accomplished all the sooner and better if 
these unholy agencies will let it alone. I speak 
of what is the manifest purpose of Him who hath 
fixed bounds to the sea and the dry land ; and hath 
determined the courses of rivers and of mountains. I 
speak of what is the natural course of events, and 
which flow as a consequence from the works of His 
hand, which neither the folly nor selfishness of man 
can resist or defeat. But when our land shall thus 
have become a central point to the whole world, on 
the one side reaching China and the adjacent Archi- 
pelago, through the Pacific, studded with its coral 
isles ; and, on the other, reaching the most powerful 
nations of Europe, through the long travelled At- 
lantic ; who does not foresee the impulse which will 
then be given to the spread of our religion, our laws 
and institutions, and the influence which they must 
thenceforward have on the destinies of the whole 
habitable globe. 

Allow me to notice one other point in this paral- 
lel. We have shown you how opportunely the 
establishment of the Hebrew commonwealth was 
adapted to prevent the utter ruin of the guilty na- 
tions whose iniquity was then full. Equally oppor- 
tune was the settlement of this land and the rise 
of our republic. When America first came to the 
knowledge of Europe, so galling was the yoke of 



THIRD LECTURE. 115 

civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, and such was the 
determined spirit of resistance against it, that had 
there not been in this country a place of escape for 
the wronged and oppressed, an explosion would 
have been produced, causing blood to flow in tor- 
rents. Judge of it as the kings and princes of Eu- 
rope may, this western world is the safety-valve to 
which they owe their preservation from an earlier 
and utter ruin. Had it not been provided in due 
season, their thrones would have been hurled to the 
dust by a spirit too fierce and excited to discern 
where justice should end and mercy should begin, 
and which, in its hot haste, might have confounded 
right with wrong, and truth with error. Cromwell 
was on the point of leaving England and embark- 
ing for America, when he was compelled to remain 
by an arbitrary order of Council, and the conse- 
quence to royalty is well known. In this new world 
his daring and manly spirit would have had ample 
scope for the accomplishment of good, without the 
irritation from insufferable wrongs which drove him 
to deeds that every one must condemn and deplore. 
Many a noble patriot in our land would have been 
a Cromwell, if not something worse, had he beeft 
compelled to act his part under Cromwell's tempta 
tions. Chafed, as the minds of men had become in 
the Old World, by long continued cruelty and in- 



116 THIRD LECTURE. 

justice, they required the calm retirement of the 
New, and its great distance from the scene of their 
sufferings, to enable them to judge wisely and de- 
liberately as to what were the true remedies for the 
evils which they could no longer endure. And now 
that their work is done, and institutions created by 
the wise and deliberate counsels of the founders of 
our Republic, which are alike the happiness and 
safety of our country ; the older nations of the 
earth are deriving no small benefit from the freedom 
which we claim as our inheritance. The remark 
is just and true, that Old England would not have 
become what she is in the freedom of her subjects, 
if New England had never sprung from her loins. 
Her rulers have seen that nothing could save them 
from a revolution but a spirit of wise and timely 
concession to the rightful demands of the people ; 
and at this day we see her "conservatives" occupy- 
ing and defending ground where her advocates of 
" reform," not many years since, scarce ventured to 
take up their position. In fact, there is not a nation 
in Europe that has not felt, and does not now feel, 
our influence in curbing and restraining tyranny, or 
in keeping alive an ambition for freedom in the 
minds of the people. 

I have but one concluding topic to urge. It re- 
lates to the high and responsible post which God 



THIRD LECTURE. 117 

has assigned to this country, in the great work of 
evangelizing and civilizing the world. No nation 
in Protestant Christendom stands so directly face to 
face with Pagan nations as ourselves. From our 
shores on the Pacific, we look immediately, not only 
on the inhospitable wilds of Siberia, but upon the 
vast and populous empire of China ; upon Farther 
India, and upon the islands of Japan and the Eastern 
Archipelago ; regions " where Satan's seat is," and 
where his unclean and cruel dominion, as yet, has 
been scarcely invaded. A new way of access to 
them is now opened. We have shown you how the 
ocean, which divides us from them, is soon to be 
bridged by our flying steamers freighted with the 
wealth of the world. While our merchants will be 
actively employed in gathering golden harvests from 
commerce with these dark and long inaccessible 
countries, Christians among us should be equally 
engaged in sending them " greater riches than the 
treasures of Egypt." They present a field for Gospel 
conquests that seems to have been reserved for the 
American Churches ; and we should consider it a duty 
specially required of us to " go up and possess the 
land," covering it with the blessings of Christian 
truth and Christian freedom. No nation lies under 
so heavy a responsibility in this thing as the United 
States of America. 



11Q THIRD LECTURE. 

But we have a work to do at home as well as 
abroad for Christianizing the world, which, in a 
great degree, is peculiar to ourselves. I have alluded 
to the prevalence of the sentiment, that our country 
is the home of the emigrant, and that to furnish an 
asylum for the oppressed and destitute of other 
lands, is one of the destinies which we are appointed 
to fulfil. I have said, I do not share in the fears 
which some entertain on this subject. I do not be- 
lieve that our institutions are jeopardized by the 
crowds seen flying to us from abroad. I entertain 
the higher hopes of our country when I see it be- 
coming a Bethesda, a house of mercy for the suffer- 
ing ; for it thus secures to itself the blessings of 
them that were ready to perish. The nation has 
possessed a character from the beginning too distinct 
and enduring, too strong and determined, to be 
changed by any exotic influence acting upon it at this 
day of its maturing strength. Let wise legislation 
and active Christian benevolence take care that 
foreigners be made to understand and appreciate 
our civil and religious privileges ; and, so far from 
having anything to fear, w r e have much to hope 
both for ourselves and for them by their residence 
in the midst of us. It is indeed true that they 
bring with them lamentable displays of ignorance 
and superstition. But we should look upon them 



THIRD LECTURE. 119 

as sent to us to be enlightened and relieved. We 
should consider it as so much work brought to our 
doors, that it may be done the more effectually. 
They are sent to us that they may gain lessons of 
wisdom, which they could not have learned so well, 
nor would we so earnestly have taught them, had 
they remained in their former homes. When they 
become inhabitants of a country held in common by 
them and ourselves, we feel tnat we are so shut up 
to our duty that the penalty of our neglect must be 
our own ruin ; that we must give the truth to them, 
or lose it ourselves ; and thus are we stimulated in 
our duty by the conviction that, while we are acting 
for the good of others, we are also laboring for our 
own welfare, and the welfare of our children in 
future generations. 

But the good which may thus be done among 
" the strangers within our gates " is far from being 
confined to those who may live and die among us. 
Through them we are sowing a seed which is yet 
to spring up and bear its most abundant fruit in the 
countries from which they have come. There is an 
incident in New Testament history which has a 
pregnant meaning on this subject. When Jerusalem, 
on the day of Pentecost, was made the radiating 
point of " saving light " to the world, " there were 
dwellers in the city out of every nation under 



120 THIRD LECTURE. 

ncaven ; Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and 
the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and 
Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pam- 
phylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libia about 
Cyrene, strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, 
Cretes and Arabians," who received the Gospel, and 
" were baptized in the name of Christ." The time 
had come when " repentance and remission of sins 
should be preached in his name among all nations, 
beginning at Jerusalem ;" and here do we see the 
all-wise God preparing the right means for ac- 
complishing that great end. He shed down his 
spirit, and brought into his church, men " of every 
nation under heaven," while they were " dwellers" or 
" sojourners " among his people, that they might be 
constrained and the better qualified to carry his 
Gospel into all the various lands from which they 
had come, and to which they belonged. The result 
was soon made known in the speed and the power 
with which his kingdom was spread in that day of 
its glory. 

We believe that by a similar instrumentality the 
Gospel is again to be carried to distant and now 
darkened regions of the earth ; and that such a 
service as was then rendered by "the dwellers at 
Jerusalem from every nation under heaven," will 
again be performed by " the sons of the stranger " 



THIRD LECTURE. 121 

now clustering to our shores from all quarters of 
the globe. We view them as sent to us by the over- 
ruling providence of God, that they may here learn 
our religion, our laws and institutions, and become 
the means of carrying these privileges back to the 
home of their fathers. In this way a new leaf is 
to be opened up in the history of missions. Much 
credit as may be due to the noble-hearted men who 
have gone abroad from Christian lands as mission- 
aries to the heathen, it is vain to expect that the 
great mass of Pagan nations can be brought to 
Christianity by their labors. They can but sow the 
seed ; " and herein is that saying true, one soweth 
and another reapeth." The harvest must be gathered 
in by those who belong to the land where the seed 
has taken root. No people can be so advanta- 
geously and universally instructed as where the 
teachers and the taught speak the same vernacular 
language, and sympathise with each other through 
the countless cords of the heart, which a foreigner 
cannot so happily touch. Native instructors must do 
the work, and they can never be so amply qualifi 
ed for their task as by having lived in the midst 
of a people, and mingled with a people, where they 
have not only learned the truths of Christianity, but 
have also seen its practical workings, and have 

been witnesses of the blessings it bestows. 
6 



122 THIRD LECTURE. 

Our age and our country have already furnished 
a remarkable demonstration of this. Time has fully 
shown how little can be done for Africa unless by 
those who properly belong to her own race of the 
human family. Long, painfully long, has she re- 
mained what she has often been called, " opprobrium 
humani generis" the reproach of mankind, because 
of her deep and unrelieved degradation. Notwith- 
standing the most persevering efforts made by some 
of her best and most devoted friends, sad experience 
has shown that she never can be elevated and ej> 
lightened by the labors of white men. They are 
under the ban of her climate ; and she has written 
her stern decree for their exclusion all along her 
coast, in the graves of those to whom it was allowed 
only to die for the cause for which they had hoped 
to live and labor. All now admit that if ever Africa 
is redeemed from darkness it must be the work of 
her own sons, and of their descendants, trained for 
a successful entrance on the service by having 
enjoyed the privileges of a Christian land. And 
since the work has passed into their hands a success 
has followed it that has silenced even the scoffer. 
"Ethiopia is stretching out her hands unto God." 
Regions on her coast, lately " filled with the habi- 
tations of cruelty," are blessed with the light of life. 
A cordon of moral health begins to surround her, not 



THIRD LECTURE. 123 

to confine pestilence within, but to exclude pirates 
from without, whose ruthless violence has long 
soaked her sands in the tears and blood of her chil- 
dren. Liberia is a Christian and a free country ; and, 
like " a city set on a hill," is showing to the world 
what Africans can become, and can accomplish, 
when moulded under the power of the Gospel. It 
was in America, and while dwelling in the midst of 
us, that the men who have thus begun the work of 
evangelizing the land of their fathers were trained 
for their high enterprise ; and our nation has enjoy- 
ed the opportunity of showing how successfully 
colonies may be planted, without entailing on them 
the evils of colonial dependence. 

Let us also look at China. Missionary means 
and labors have been expended there without inter- 
ruption for many years, but with comparatively 
small success. The land still continues walled in 
from the approach of the Gospel, and the inhabitants 
boast that its citadels of darkness remain impreg- 
nable, whether assailed by one denomination of 
Christians or another. Their habitual jealousy and 
studied contempt for foreigners seems to shut their 
ears against the truth which its ablest advocate 
may present to them ; and their language is so in- 
tricate and perplexing that it costs him the labor of 
years before he can either speak or write it with 



124 THIRD LECTURE. 

freedom and confidence.* No argument can be re* 
quired to show what an impulse would be given to 
the spread of Christianity in China by the native 
Chinaman, who, having witnessed and felt the power 
of the Gospel in a Christian land, would then return 
with a heart yearning for the salvation of his coun- 
trymen, "beseeching them, in Christ's stead, to be 
reconciled unto God." But where, and how are the 
proud jealous sons of that long secluded and wide 
empire to be qualified for such an important service? 
Not many years since it would have been scarce 
possible to give an answer to the question. Re- 
cent events, already noticed, suggest a reply. The ad- 
vance of our nation, with her institutions both ci 
vil and religious, to the shores of the Pacific, was 
an important step in the civilization of the world ; 
and now, when under the aegis of her protection, she 
is bringing to light the rich resources of that long 
neglected region, the dormant faculties of the vari- 
ous nations in Eastern Asia will soon be quickened 
into new activity. The Celestial Empire already 
begins to lose the spell which bound the Chinaman in 
the belief that it contains within itself every thing 
of value, and that every thing " on the outside " of 
its confines is barbarous and worthless. The new, 
but restless desire to learn the secret of our strength, 
* Note L. 



THIRD LECTURE. 125 

when we have opened a new way to his doors, 
will impel him to show himself among us. And 
when the Chinaman comes he will soon be followed 
by others. When our country shall have become, as 
we have described, the great highway for the com- 
mercial wealth of the world as it passes from one 
continent to another, it will call to our shores my- 
riads from north, south, east and west, until every 
language shall be spoken, and every tribe and kind- 
red of the human family shall be seen among us. 
The effect of such a state of things on the religious 
interests of mankind was not overlooked by the 
" Holy men of God, speaking as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost." A commerce which will bring 
together countries now far distant from each other, 
a commerce which forms that very branch of en- 
terprise and industry in which our nation is fast 
taking the lead, is distinctly described in prophetic 
language, as yet to have a wide-felt influence in 
turning the whole earth to the Lord. " Surely the 
isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish 
first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their 
gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God, 
and to the Holy One of Israel." 

When I look forward to that day, a day of such 
large, if not measureless means of doing good to 
mankind, yet to be entrusted to the hands of this 



126 THIRD LECTURE. 

nation, I admit that I " rejoice with trembling." It 
will bring with it a responsibility to God and to man 
for which we should be anxious to be well prepared. 
Many of our sainted fathers, as Edwards, Davies, 
and others, " after they had served their generation, 
by the will of God fell on sleep " cheered to their 
dying hour with the conviction that from the 
churches in America the Gospel will be first exhibit- 
ed, with that light and power which will subdue 
" every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and peo- 
ple," to the obedience of faith. Events which they 
could little foresee seem to be preparing the way 
for the fulfilment of their expectations. Are Chris- 
tians amongst us animated by a zeal which corres- 
ponds with these brightening indications of God's 
holy providence ? 



FOURTH LECTURE. 



In our last lecture, having alluded to the con- 
dition of the Hebrew nation while suffering their 
bondage in Egypt, we observed that to have given 
them the institutions of civil freedom, without first 
preparing them for it, would not have been either 
kindness or wisdom. The minds of the people need- 
ed to be trained to new associations, new concep- 
tions and new standards of right, before they could 
be entrusted with the privileges of self-government ; 
and we showed how this great object was promoted 
by their migration to another country, by their re- 
moval from Egypt to the Land of Canaan. 

We have now to contemplate another step in 
the work of preparation, and which indeed forms a 
prominent feature in the constitution by which they 
were to be governed. I refer to the provision made 
for the diffusion of knowledge throughout all classes 
of the people. 

It has been remarked, that "a well graduated 



128 FOURTH LECTURE. 

commonwealth is like a pyramid ; the common peo- 
ple are its base ; and in communities, as in archi- 
tecture, the destruction is greatest when it begins at 
the foundation ;" and it might have been added, that 
the edifice can never be strong and enduring if the 
foundation is not sound and well adapted to its 
place. Hence the indispensable importance of ren- 
dering a free people an intelligent people — of se- 
curing to them a competent education for the dis- 
charge of their relative duties to God and to man. 
Irrational animals may choose that which is best for 
their own welfare if left to themselves. They can 
follow their instinct, and thus best answer the pur- 
pose of their creation. To eat and to drink, to live 
and to die, is their beginning and their end, the sum 
of their destiny. " Their spirit goeth downward," 
says the Preacher. But, on the contrary, " the spirit 
of man goeth upward." He is formed for higher 
things. He was made to rule the world around him, 
and to make it the theatre of preparation for a 
better. He has duties to perform to his Maker and 
to his fellow-men, which demand inquiry, thought, 
and reflection ; which call for divine light from 
above, to guide, and a right heart within, to follow 
where his duty and happiness require him to go. 
And yet see what he is when he comes into the 
world, where he is to act so important a part both 



FOURTH LECTURE. 129 

to others and for himself. He is born, both in body 
and mind, a feeble creature. As his physical frame 
needs a mother's judicious care for its growth and 
development, his moral and mental faculties would 
remain feeble and become distorted if left to them- 
selves ; and if ever his powers are so drawn out as 
to render him what he is capable of becoming, he 
must be led to his duty, not driven to it. He is not 
a mere machine, nor can he be governed as such. 
You may, by mere force, prevent him from doing 
what is wrong, but you cannot, by the same means, 
constrain him to do what is right. You must help 
him to understand his duty. You must use the means 
which his Maker has appointed to free him from 
the thraldom and degradation of ignorance, and 
thus awaken him to a sense of the destiny before 
him ; and then, and only then, can you expect him 
both to comprehend and fulfil his duties to his 
Maker, to himself, and also to his neighbor. 

Such being the case, it is very obvious that, over 
and above the essential importance of instruction to 
men viewed as immortal beings, if they are ever to 
become the subjects of self-government as a nation, 
they must be educated for it — educated to under- 
stand and appreciate their privileges and responsi- 
bilities, and the respective duties arising out of them. 
Accordingly, let us see what God ordained on this 



130 FOURTH LECTURE. 

point for the nation of the Hebrews when he orga- 
nized them as a commonwealth. 

Strange as it may perhaps seem to some of us, 
there has scarcely ever been a nation in which the 
people were so universally taught to read. That 
such was very generally the case in the time of 
our Saviour, we would infer from the manner in 
which he often appeals to the people, asking, " Have 
ye not read what Moses saith," "Have ye not 
read in the Scriptures," thus implying that his 
hearers could and did read the writings of Moses 
and the prophets. The same thing is plainly to be 
inferred when we are told respecting the inscription 
which Pilate placed over the head of the Redeemer 
at his crucifixion, " This title then read many of the 
Jews." But we have proof that may be viewed as 
still more conclusive. We may quote to you the law 
which impliedly enjoins it on parents, as a solemn 
duty, that the young should be taught to read and 
to study the statutes and the ordinances which God 
had revealed. " The words which I command thee 
this day," he ordains, "shall be in thy heart, and 
thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children." 
But how was this diligent instruction to be given? 
The command proceeds to say, " Thou shalt talk of 
them when thou sittest in thine house, and when 
thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and 



FOURTH LECTURE. 131 

when thou risest up." But was this oral instruction 
all that they were bound to give? Was there no 
other mode of teaching enjoined ? See what is add- 
ed : " And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon 
thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between 
thine eyes ; and thou shalt write them upon the 
posts of thine house, and on thy gates." It scarcely 
needs to be observed that if parents were to instruct 
their children in God's law, by thus writing it for 
them ; it follows that both parents and children must 
have been able to read it when written, for other- 
wise the writing would have been comparatively 
useless. And when you consider that in those days 
the art of printing had not been discovered, and that 
great time and labor were required in order to write 
the contents of the inspired volume on the posts of 
their doors and on their gates, you may learn the 
importance which the Most High attributed to the 
ability to read, as a means of preparing a people for 
the intelligent and conscientious discharge of their 
respective duties. Accordingly we find it to be the 
uniform testimony of Jewish writers that the school 
was to be found in every district throughout the 
nation, and under the care of teachers who were 
honored alike for their character and their station. 
Nor was this all. As the divine command plainly 
implies, and as intelligent Jewish commentators in- 



132 FOURTH LECTURE. 

terpret its meaning, it was not left to parents to 
decide whether their children should or should not 
be suitably educated. This duty was viewed as 
enjoined upon them by the authority of law ; and up 
to this point we believe that wise legislation should 
come in every commonwealth. A parent should be 
required to educate his children if he has the ability 
to do it, and if not, the state should do it for him. 
There is nothing in such a requirement which can 
be accounted unjust or unreasonable. It implies no 
violation of a parent's rightful authority over his 
own family. Parental duty may be, and is enforced 
by the laws of the land in other cases. If a parent 
neglects to provide food and raiment for his children, 
the civil authority compels him to do it if he has the 
ability ; and if not, it takes them out of his hands and 
does it in his stead. And is the body of more value 
than the mind ; or the animal wants of a people of 
more consequence to public welfare than the moral 
and intellectual? Apart from the benefits which 
such laws ensure to the young themselves, in se- 
curing them against the degradation of ignorance, 
every well-ordered state should feel that, as it values 
public safety, it must not allow its youth to grow 
up within its own bosom in a condition of ignorance 
that would render them incendiaries, and pests to all 
its best interests. 



FOURTH LECTURE. 133 

Still farther, schools for the general education of 
the people were not the only institutions of learning 
among the Hebrews. To shed upon our earth the 
full and various illumination which it needs, there 
must be not only the lesser, but also the greater 
lights in the firmament ; and it is from the greater 
that the lesser often derive their power to shine. 
The same laws prevail in the world of learning 
and of mind. The higher and greater seminaries 
of education are indispensable to a sound state of 
intellect in a people ; were they to disappear, the 
common school would soon be shorn of its bright- 
ness. They are both parts of the same system, and 
they must exist and move together if the system is 
harmonious and complete. Accordingly there were 
higher institutions introduced and established among 
the Hebrews, under the title of " Schools of the Pro- 
phets," by which are meant seminaries where were 
taught, not only theology, but also other branches ot 
knowledge which were reckoned among the pur- 
suits of learning in that day.* 

These "Schools" were under the care of men 
who stood high for their own intellectual attain- 
ments and their ability to impart knowledge to their 

* The term u prophet " is sometimes used in Scripture not 
only for one who fortells future events, but also for one who is 
employed in gmng instruction. Num. 11 : 25, 27. Also, 1 Cor, 
14:1, 3 4. 



134 FOURTH LECTURE. 

pupils. Even Samuel, notwithstanding the abun- 
dance of his public cares, seems at times to have 
sought the retirement which they afforded, to refresh 
his mind with a review of what he had studied in 
earlier life, and to take a part in teaching the young 
scholars of the nation, who were in aftertimes to be 
its leading men in both Church and State. The 
result of such a regard for learning was what may 
well be called the golden age of the Hebrews, in 
which the nation rose to a high point of intellectual 
distinction. Solomon and his court were in their 
day the great centre of attraction for those of all 
nations who loved and honored knowledge. "His 
wisdom," we are told, " excelled all the wisdom of 
the children of the East country, and all the wisdom 
of Egypt. He spake of trees, from the cedar in 
Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of 
the wall ; he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and 
of creeping things, and of fishes. His songs w T ere a 
thousand and five, and his proverbs three thousand." 
And while he excelled in the wide fields of natural 
science, poetry and ethics, the Temple, which still 
bears his name, stood before the world a monument 
of skill and taste, which rendered it in after ages 
the original model of grace, majesty, and grandeur 
in architecture. 

Such gifted luminaries in the intellectual world 



FOURTH LECTURE. 135 

do not shine alone. They usually belong to a con- 
stellation, and the king who sets such an example 
is not likely to be without followers. There was 
indeed one cardinal feature in the Hebrew poli- 
ty which was pre-eminently favorable, at all times, 
to the cultivation of knowledge. By divine ap- 
pointment the whole tribe of Levi were set apart 
for the service of religion and letters; and while 
many were employed before the altar and in the 
temple, others were devoted to study ; many of 
whom, especially in the reign of Solomon, reach- 
ed a high name both for their attainments in the 
science of their age and the fidelity with which 
they made their learning available for the benefit 
of the people.* Thus was produced that happy con- 
junction in the history of knowledge, when learning 

* Michaelis terms the Levites " a learned noblesse," and speaks 
of them as " forming a counterpoise to the democracy of the na- 
tion." Considering his views of civil government, it is perhaps not 
surprising that he should have been anxious to find something in 
the Hebrew State as an offset against its plainly democratic spirit. 
There was little of a "noblesse" among the Levites. While it 
is true, as he says, that " they were not merely a spirituality, but 
the literati of all the faculties," and were generally chosen to 
offices of importance whether in church or state : this arose from 
their superior knowledge and general worth of character. His 
idea that they were not employed in teaching the people, is utterly 
inadmissible. Moses declares expressly of the Levites, as such, 
" They shall teach Jacob thy judgments and Israel thy law." To 



136 FOURTH LECTURE. 

bestowed honor on the learned, and the learned 
brought honor to learning ; when the highest attain- 
ments were deemed of value, not according as they 
gave distinction to him who had reached them, but 
according as they tended to improve and to bless 
the whole family of man. Among the Hebrews 
there was no monopoly of knowledge by a favored 
few. Intelligence was general in the degree and of 
the kind adapted to the various duties and pursuits 
of those among whom it was spread. The tongue 
and the pen of even learned royalty were indus- 
triously employed in giving to knowledge that con- 
densed and practical form which might bring it 
within the reach, and make it available for the 
advantage of all, of the shepherd and vine-dresser, 
as well as " the Sons of the Prophets." When the 
learned act with this generous and dutiful spirit, 
they always reap according as they sow. The minds 



have been " without a teaching priest " is described as the cause 
of the general impiety and adversity which at times overtook the 
nation; and the return of the Levites to their duty as teachers is 
more than once mentioned as among the first things enjoined by 
rulers and kings who arose as reformers of prevailing abuses. 
2 Chron. 15:3. 17 : 7-9. 30 : 22. 35 : 3. Nehemiah, 8 : 7, 8. The 
labors of the Levites may not have been precisely like those of our 
parish clergymen ; but whether it was in the school of higher or 
lower degree, or in the assembly of worship, the tribe of Levi 
were ordinarily considered as the appropriate instructors. 



FOURTH LECTURE. 137 

of those who receive instruction will re-act upon the 
minds of those who give it, imparting to them higher 
aspirations, and leading them to greater acquisitions. 
If, as geologists tell us, there are countries where 
the whole land is constantly rising higher and higher 
above the level of the sea, the mountains must rise 
as well as the valleys ; and in every wisely adjusted 
system for the intellectual education of a nation, 
when the mass of the people are improved in intel- 
ligence, the attainments of the more learned will be 
advanced in a like proportion. All will rise together. 
These provisions for the diffusion of knowledge 
which we find among the Hebrews have been sanc- 
tioned by universal history as inseparably inter- 
woven with national prosperity. No people can 
rise from civil or social degradation without edu- 
cation ; and no ruler deserves the reputation of a 
public benefactor who would not give his unremit- 
ting care to this object, as of paramount importance. 
The " good king Alfred," as he is often called, arose 
at a time when nothing less than a spirit like his 
could have saved his country from entire subversion. 
He expressly attributes its worst evils to the pre- 
valence of ignorance, and he began his measures 
of reform by inviting distinguished scholars from 
abroad, by endowing literary institutions for the cul- 
tivation of learning, at the same time establishing 



138 FOURTH LECTURE. 

schools throughout the land for the education of the 
people, requiring every parent to send his children 
to be taught, and giving public employment only to 
such as had made satisfactory proficiency in know- 
ledge. He went farther still. He added the in- 
fluence of his own example, not only as a diligent 
and successful student, but in preparing, with his 
own pen, books for the intellectual and moral im- 
provement of all classes among his subjects. Be- 
fore his death the whole face of affairs in the land 
was changed : and in a work, said to be still extant, 
he congratulates himself on the prosperity which 
had sprung from general education. 

The mantle of Alfred is often said to have fallen 
upon Edward the Sixth. The wonderful mind of 
that prince would have rendered him another " ad- 
mirable Crichton," if he had been simply a scholar 
and not a king. In wisdom he was as far beyond 
his own years as he was before the age of the world 
in which he lived. "When he took counsel, as he 
tells us, how he should most effectually benefit the 
Commonwealth, he pronounced "good education, 
first in order, and first in dignity and degree," and 
declared his purpose to " show his device therein." 
Alas ! death cut him off in the midst of his plans for 
the freedom and happiness of his people, removing 
him from a world in which, at that day, he seems to 



FOURTH LECTURE. 139 

have been too wise and too good to find those who 
would co-operate with him for the welfare of his 
race. His death has been considered by many as 
the greatest calamity with which England was ever 
overtaken ; and her philanthropists and statesmen 
of late have been led to feel the importance of the 
work he contemplated, and are making it the 
" question of questions " how to diffuse suitable edu- 
cation among the mass of the people. 

The service rendered to Scotland by her parish 
schools is known to every one at all acquainted 
with her history. So deep was her degradation be- 
fore she introduced them, that one of her leading 
patriots was led to propose the introduction of do- 
mestic servitude as a remedy for the vagrancy and 
low crime which had overspread the country. Since 
she gave her people education, she has produced 
a race of men known through the world for their 
shrewd intelligence and successful industry. If we 
look at the enactments of Holland for educating the 
children of that Republic, and which were enforced 
by the authority of both Church and State, we can 
see how she arose to the greatness that once dis- 
tinguished her. To Prussia, however, belongs the 
credit of having recently set an example that has 
given a new impulse to the cause of popular edu- 
cation in Europe. The value of instruction de- 



140 FOURTH LECTURE. 

pends on the qualifications of the teacner ; and with 
a wise regard to this important principle, Prussia 
created Normal Institutions for the education of 
teachers, and also established schools in every dis- 
trict of the country, to which every parent is requir- 
ed by law to send his children, unless he gives satis- 
factory proof to the competent authority that he 
is educating them at home at his own expense. 
The effect of these regulations is that every child 
in the Prussian dominions receives, at a suitable 
age, an education in such branches as are con- 
nected with the ordinary purposes of life. Within 
a few years also a special ordinance has been passed 
directing that a Bible be placed in the hands of every 
teacher in the public schools, as an official acknow- 
ledgment of the truth of Christianity. The conse- 
quences which must flow from such a system of in- 
struction can be easily foreseen. Neither civil nor 
religious abuses can long endure when the mind of 
the public becomes so effectually enlightened res- 
pecting the rights and duties of rulers and ruled. 
We hazard little in the prediction that Prussia will 
take the lead among the nations of Europe in many 
of the reforms which are approaching. 

But to the ancestors of our own country we may 
turn for the best of proofs, showing the importance 
of general education for the welfare of the people. 



FOURTH LECTURE. 141 

They were Bible men. In whatever they did for 
themselves or for others, for private or for public 
welfare, they acted on Bible principles. And whether 
they were Hollanders, or Huguenots, or Pilgrims, 
on this point they had but one mind, they adopted 
but one rule as to the rising generation. It was, 
that every child must be taught, at the charge of 
its parents if they were able ; at the charge of the 
public if they were not. And from that, as the root, 
has sprung the tree of our national prosperity, which 
is spreading forth its branches so luxuriantly. If its 
growth is not to be checked, and its beauty marred, 
we, in our day, and our children after us, must carry 
out this principle, w r hich they esteemed so funda- 
mental in both their civil and religious systems. It 
furnishes no small gratification to both the patriot 
and the Christian to see constant proofs that their 
zeal for the blessings of education is fully alive in 
the nation. Widely and rapidly as we are carrying 
our free institutions into the wilderness, every new 
Territory and State makes it a leading point in 
her policy to set apart lands or other resources 
for schools; and in the older States "the school 
fund " is guarded with a jealously that shows how 
universally public sentiment sympathises with the 
education of the people. Every party in politics, 
and every sect in religion, unite in the belief that 



142 FOURTH LECTURE. 

general ignorance would be certain ruin ; and that 
if we expect it " to be well with us and with our 
children after us," the civil authorities should make 
it a matter of imperative obligation that a child 
should be educated, as much as that a child should 
be fed and clothed. The curse of ignorance is worse 
than the curse of nakedness and hunger. It is of- 
ten the cause of both, and of still more ruinous 
effects. " It is only," says a great statesman, " it 
is only when every child can read its Bible, that 
every family will have its meal." He told but a 
part of the story. When every child can read its 
Bible, every family will have something more than 
its meal. Mere animal comforts will not be all that 
a people thus educated will crave and will have. 
They will have their meal, and with it the civil and 
religious institutions which ensure elevation of mind 
and of morals, and form the true glory and strength 
of any nation. 

These observations at once introduce a view of 
the subject to which I wish to call especial atten- 
tion. I mean the duty and expediency of maintaining 
the use of the Bible in our schools. Did my limits 
permit I would respectfully suggest the inquiry to 
professors and lecturers in our higher seminaries of 
learning, whether the Bible receives due attention as 
a book abounding with classical beauties, when they 



FOURTH LECTURE. 143 

are instructing their students in belles lettres studies. 
A heathen critic has referred to the words, "Let 
there be light, and there was light," as the most 
perfect specimen of the sublime which he could 
quote from any writing extant in his day. It were 
to be wished that a greater number of our instruc- 
tors in criticism would follow his example, and draw 
out more fully into view the striking illustrations of 
grandeur and sublimity, grace and beauty, dignity 
and simplicity, whether in history or poetry, which 
are to be found in the Holy Scriptures. Had Blair 
and Kaimes, and others quoted, we will not say 
less frequently from Demosthenes and Homer, from 
Cicero and Virgil, from Addison and Shakspere, 
but more frequently from Moses, David, Isaiah and 
Paul, their illustrations might have been more per- 
fect and convincing ; and while the mind of the 
pupil was taught to admire the casket, his heart 
might have been led to realize the value of the 
diamond it contains. 

But my chief object at present is to assert the 
importance of maintaining the use of the Bible in 
our common schools as a book for the scholar who 
is learning the elementary branches of education. 
It has always been surprising to me that in a Chris- 
tian land any question should ever have been raised 
on the subject. The answer is so obviously dictated 



144 FOURTH LECTURE. 

by common sense, that, to a mind devoid of pre- 
judice, there seems no room for doubt. The great 
object of education is to form the taste, to elicit 
the powers and habitudes of thought, and to give 
purity and rectitude to the heart and life. If there 
is any one book which has been proved by the 
history of all time to be the best book for ac- 
complishing these invaluable ends, that is the book 
with which every learner should be made fa- 
miliar. Let him learn from others in their re- 
spective places and according to their respective 
claims ; but let none of them displace this from its 
priority. Let it stand upon its merits, and according 
to its merits tried and proved by its fruits through 
countless generations, let it be regarded. This is the 
plain and common sense answer to the question, so 
tortured and vexed in our day, of whether the Bible 
should be read in our schools. If we can be fur- 
nished with any other book that promises more 
effectually to improve the mind or the heart, a-n^ 
which makes its lessons so plain and t u mat 
a child can understand and feel them, then we have 
not a word to say. But if, for these invaluable pur- 
poses, and in these rare attributes, the Bible stands 
peerless and alone, then have we every thing to say 
in proof that learners should take their lessons from 
its inspired pages. 



FOURTH LECTURE. 145 

What then are the facts, and what the judgment 
of the wise and the good respecting the best book 
for a learner? Would they give us the Bible, or 
have they discovered something better? When the 
subject came before the mind of that accomplished 
scholar and jurist, Sir William Jones, he declared 
that " The Scriptures contain, independently of their 
divine original, more true sublimity, more exquisite 
beauty, more important history, pure morality, and 
finer strains both of poetry and eloquence than could 
be collected within the same compass from all other 
books that were ever composed in any age or in 
any idiom." And we should add that, while his 
judgment is confirmed by the testimony of the 
learned in all professions, it is in fullest accor- 
dance with the views of the best masters who have 
devoted themselves to the business of education. 

But there is something still further to be said 
of the Bible as a book for learners in a country 
like ours. Here the English language is the lan- 
guage of the nation ; and not only is it fast rooting 
out every other which has hitherto prevailed in dif- 
ferent parts of the land, but it is yet to be the great 
language of communication throughout the civilized 
world. ' On these accounts it should be made a lead- 
ing subject of study in our schools. But although 

the essential beauties of the Bible, which are so for- 

7 



146 FOURTH LECTURE. 

cibly and comprehensively described in the words 
we have just quoted, cannot be lost in any language 
or dialect into which it is faithfully rendered ; yet 
into no language has the rich meaning of the in 
spired volume been so fully and happily conveyed 
as our own ; and in no book which can be put into 
the hands of a reader is there such a " well of English 
undefiled" as in our English Bible. Both these 
points are now matters of general consent. In the 
words of Adam Clarke, "our translators have not 
only made a standard translation, but they have 
made their translation the standard of the language. 
The English tongue in their day was not equal to 
such a work ; but God enabled them to stand as 
upon Mount Sinai, and crane up their country's lan- 
guage to the dignity of the originals, so that after 
the lapse of two hundred years the English Bible is, 
with very few exceptions, the standard of purity 
and excellence of the English tongue." 

The classical and accomplished Dr. Beattie de- 
scribes it as " a striking beauty in our English Bibles 
that, though the language is always elegant and 
nervous, and for the most part very harmonious, the 
words are all plain and common, without affectation 
of learned terms." 

"In no book," said the eloquent Fisher Ames, 
" is there so good English, so pure and elegant ; and 



FOURTH LECTURE. 14? 

by teaching all the same book, they will speak alike, 
and the Bible will justly remain the standard of 
language as well of faith." 

"Indeed," says another high authority,* "when 
we reflect that the Bible has been regarded as a mo- 
del of correct expression by the ablest critics, that it 
has been more read than any other English book, 
that the nature of its subjects and the character of 
the people have given it, more than any other book, 
a hold upon the imagination and the feelings, we do 
not wonder at the extent to which its language has 
become the basis both of prose and of verse, and 
even, to some extent, of common conversation. The 
Bible is not subject to the fluctuations of taste." 

It surely will not be said that there is any other 
book which even approaches the Bible in such tes- 
timony on its behalf, showing its value to enrich 
and discipline the mind, by furnishing it with both 
the best materials and the best models for thought. 

But education has done only a part of its work 
when it enlightens the mind and refines the taste 
of the scholar. The affections and conduct must 

* Biblical Repository and Theological Review: p. 185, vol. 8. 
The quotation is from an interesting and valuable article, entitled 
" The English Bible," and which contains several other testimonies 
of a like import with those we have recited. The whole article is 
replete with important facts and statements, presented with much 
clearness and force. 



149 FOURTH LECTURE. 

be reached as well as the understanding ; and when 
I ask for the b§st book to improve the heart and the 
life of the learner — what shall it be ? Can any one 
say that, in the whole range of writings, ancient 
or modern, there is a book to compare with the 
Bible for this great purpose? Go among the old 
and young who exhibit a pure life, a right heart, 
and a " conscience void of offence towards God and 
towards man/' and to what will they ascribe the 
influence that has opened their eyes to see their 
duty and inclined their hearts to pursue it? They 
will all refer you to the Bible and the sacred truths 
it contains. Then look at the opposite picture : Go 
among them who are the foes of heaven, and the 
plague of earth, who have become so hardened in 
the long practice of deep iniquity that "their neck 
is a sinew of iron, and their brow brass," and 
ask them what they know of the Bible. You find 
them strangers to the very name. It has been to 
them in youth and in years a book unknown, and 
hence the hardened and hopeless obduracy of their 
case. Or let us turn again to a still different class 
of transgressors, to those who may have wandered 
far from the paths of duty, but who in their early 
days have been taught to read the Bible. Far as 
they may have gone in evil, you always find in 
their bosoms a chord that can be touched, a tender 



FOURTH LECTURE. 149 

point in the conscience which remains as a token 
that there is hope in their case, and that, like the 
prodigal of old, they may one day come to them- 
selves. Let the mind in early life be Bible trained, 
let it be brought into frequent and familiar con- 
tact with these inspired pages, and a seed is sown 
that cannot die while the man lives ; it may be 
hidden by a long winter, but a season of spring 
usually follows, when the bud and the blossom will 
put themselves forth. Now where is the book that 
in these respects can dispute the palm with the 
Bible? What its name, and who its author? By 
what tests has it been tried, and what testimony 
can it bring to vouch for its claims ? 

"Bring me the book," said the far-famed Sir 
Walter Scott, when he felt that his last days were 
approaching. And when he was asked, " What book 
shall we bring ?" he replied, " Oh ! why ask me what 
book. There is but one book ; but one book in the 
world that deserves the name, it is the Bible." This 
was the testimony of a man who had perused count- 
less volumes, and in all the most attractive depart- 
ments of human knowledge ; the productions of whose 
own pen had fascinated myriads of old and young 
through the civilized world. And yet his last and 
truthful testimony to the value of all that had been 
written, or could be read, was in the memorable 



150 FOURTH LECTURE. 

words, " There is but one book ; but one book in the 
world that deserves the name, it is the Bible." 

There is still another view of the subject. It 
relates to schools which share in the bounty of the 
State. This public provision for the education of 
the people, we have seen, is more or less interwoven 
with the policy of several of the most enlightened 
countries of Europe, and especially with that of our 
own. On what principle is the measure to be jus- 
tified ? What makes it either the right or the duty 
of government to employ the resources of a nation 
for the purposes of education ? The thing is both 
justified and required, on the principle that the State 
is bound to promote and secure the best means for 
giving strength and stability to her own institutions, 
for the prevention as well as the punishment of crime, 
and for advancing the general welfare of the public. 
It is simply because education is essential to these 
great ends of government, that a State, as such, can 
either claim the right, or make it her duty to employ 
the public property for the purposes of general in- 
struction, or of diffusing the elements of knowledge. 
Ignorance is the parent of crime and degradation, 
and the State has the right to educate if she has the 
right to punish, inasmuch as she is equally bound to 
use all due means for the prevention of crime, and 
to punish it when it has been committed. 



FOURTH LECTURE. 151 

This being a position which few accomplished 
statesmen would now think of either questioning or 
denying, the important inquiry arises, what must 
education be, and what must it include, if it is to 
be made subservient to public welfare, so as to 
justify the State in bestowing it or in giving her aid 
to acquire it? It is not to be denied that there is 
a kind of education which m'ay render men more 
dangerous enemies to the Commonwealth than if 
they had remained in ignorance. To elicit and 
strengthen the understanding, without educating the 
conscience and the affections, only increases the 
powers of the man to do evil, without putting them 
under the control of those faculties which were de- 
signed to regulate and direct them for the accom- 
plishment of good. You educate but a part of the 
man, and accordingly as you raise him from the 
level of a brute, you convert him into the shape of 
a fiend. The more power you give him, the more 
mischief is he likely to produce. You act as if put- 
ting weapons of death into the hands of a madman. 
It is plain that in educating men after this manner 
the State should have neither part nor lot. She should 
be careful to have no share in schooling men for 
guilt, or transgression of her own laws. There are 
schools, however, which lead directly to these results. 
And where do we meet with them ? The statistics 



152 FOURTH LECTURE. 

of crime present us with an array of facts on this 
point that neither infidelity nor sophistry can over- 
look or invalidate. It is found that crime, especially 
crime against society or social institutions, spreads 
among a people according as education becomes 
general, if unaccompanied by the moral influences 
which the Bible is the great means of producing on 
the minds of old and young who are familiar with 
its inspired pages.* It then necessarily follows that 
if the State bestows of her bounty for the purposes 
of education, she abandons the only principle which 
can justify the measure, she defeats her own ends 
unless she connects moral with intellectual training. 
Her schools may otherwise become nurseries of 
criminals. 

Besides, as a corrupt people can never remain 
long a free people, this moral culture is not more 
indispensable for the prevention of crime than for 
the preservation of national liberty. There is no- 
thing in that venerated record of human wisdom, 
"the farewell address of Washington," which is 
more valuable or memorable than his sentiments on 
this very subject. " It is substantially true," he says, 
"that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of 
popular government. The rule indeed extends with 
more or less force to every species of free govern- 
* Note M. 



FOURTH LECTURE. 153 

ment." And that he might leave no doubt respect- 
ing the source of that morality which is so essential 
to freedom, he uses the explicit language, " Let us 
with caution indulge the supposition that morality 
can be maintained without religion. Whatever may 
be conceded to the influence of refined education on 
minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience 
both forbid us to expect that national morality can 
prevail in exclusion of religious principles." Indeed, 
there is neither hazard nor rashness in the declara- 
tion that civil freedom in its true meaning, and as 
we enjoy it, never existed in a nation where the 
religion which Washington acknowledged, the re- 
ligion of the Bible, did not exist along with it ; or 
where the Bible itself was not read and believed by 
the people. We may challenge contradiction of this 
assertion. Let us be told, if it can be done, of a 
single land in which you find a really free people 
without the Bible in the hands of the people. We 
have seen that the freedom of Pagan Greece and 
Rome was rather tyranny in a modified form, than 
the liberty and security combined, w r hich equally 
maintains the rights of rich and poor, strong and 
weak. Abuses were tolerated and applauded by some 
of their wisest men, which in oyr nation would 
lead to revolution. Their academies and schools, 
notwithstanding the taste and talent which they 

■7* 



254 FOURTH LECTURE. 

combined for the purposes of instruction, availed 
but little to create in the public mind the sound 
views and right feelings, without which civil free- 
dom is rather a shadow than a reality. Modern 
times, too, are giving us frequent examples to teach 
the same salutary lesson, and which, we may ob- 
serve, the world seems slow to learn. Half a cen- 
tury since, France made her first effort to become 
a free nation, and with all in her favor that could be 
derived from "the influence of refined education." 
She began by burning the Bible. The result was 
soon seen. She escaped from chains which wore 
the rust of ages, only to be fettered by others that 
were steeped in her own blood. And I must here 
add, that in the fierce and agonizing throes of na- 
tions in Europe, now struggling for freedom, I scarce 
dare hope for a much better issue. I fear that with 
some of them the Most High has a Bible contro- 
versy to plead ; a controversy which will be seen to 
have a most portentous meaning, and in which he 
will vindicate the outraged honor of his own Word, 
by writing the sin of the offending nations in their 
punishment. They have shed the blood of martyrs, 
of martyrs " who were slain for the Word of God, 
and for the testimony which they held." They put 
to death those " servants of the Most High," avowed- 
ly because of their love to God's Word, their unyield- 



FOURTH LECTURE. 155 

ing purpose to possess it, to read it, and be governed 
by it. In some of these nations who thus made war 
upon the truth, the arm of the persecutor prevailed 
till the light of the Bible was extinguished in the 
blood of those who loved it too dearly to part with 
it but with their lives. With its expiring light the 
last glimmerings of civil freedom expired also. And 
now, when these same nations, roused by a sense of 
continued oppression and wrong, are struggling after 
what they can neither get nor keep without the 
enlightening influence of the Bible on the minds of 
the people, in righteous retribution, they may be 
left to " weary themselves with the multitude of 
their councils," until, having been made to feel that 
they are " laboring in the fire," they will turn and 
put , merited, though long withheld honor, on that 
holy Volume, which was given both for the salva- 
tion of man and " for the healing of the nations. 9 * 
Let them restore the Bible wdiere it w r as, and send 
it where perhaps it never yet has been, through- 
out all their borders, and then we may hope to see 
them contending for a freedom that deserves the 
name, and their contest crowned with victory. 

There is still another consideration in this con- 
nection which shows the deep interest of the State 
in the moral culture of her people. Wherever an 
enlightened and Bible Christianity has become the 



156 FOURTH LECTURE. 

predominating sentiment of the public mind, it ren- 
ders a nation invincible in the defence of their civil 
rights. It makes courage and fortitude not only 
matters of ambition, but matters of conscience. It 
creates among all classes of the people a singleness 
of object, a unity and sympathy of feeling that no- 
thing but Christianity is adequate to produce ; and 
when the mass of a nation are governed by such high 
motives they have a power for self defence that de- 
fies every invader. When Spain made war upon the 
freedom of the United Netherlands, her gigantic 
strength had, in one sense, spread itself over both 
hemispheres. She was animated by every motive 
of pride and revenge that could render her strong 
and determined in the conflict ; but still she was 
baffled and defeated after a long and bloody war in 
which she poured forth her blood and treasure like 
water ; and the States of Holland showed to the 
world that where a people, however inconsiderable 
as to numbers, love their freedom, and are animated 
by Christian principle in defence of it, they are not 
to be subdued.* 

* It may be thought that the late overthrow of Hungary is an 
exception. Quite the reverse. If Hungary had been like Holland, 
in the unanimity of her people, and in the diffusion of Christian 
intelligence and Christian principle, her liberty would not have 
been lost by the treachery or weakness of any one man, nor could 
even Russia and Austria combined have subdued her. 



FOURTH LECTURE. lo7 

The same conclusion may be drawn from the 
history of our own country. When she arose to 
assert her freedom, her population amounted to 
barely three millions, her resources for war were 
limited and scanty, and yet she entered upon a con- 
flict with an empire whose combined military and 
naval power had then no equal among the nations 
of the earth ; and undismayed by the reverses which 
at times met her arms during a struggle of seven 
years, she came out of the contest with her rights 
maintained and her independence achieved. The 
Bible, which her statesmen and warriors had been 
taught to read in her schools, they carried with them 
into the camp and the councils of the Republic ; and 
the high moral sentiment which they had derived 
from this fountain of wisdom carried them trium- 
phantly through every peril and suffering. 

Let it not be said in reply that under a govern- 
ment like ours, which views w T ith equal favor all 
denominations of Christians, there are insuperable ob- 
jections against the introduction of religious culture 
into schools that are patronized by the State. There 
is no real difficulty in the case if properly presented. 
In view of e\>ery great measure, involving moral du- 
ty, there are always men who " see a lion in the way," 
and with whom the wish is father to the thought. 
The lion is in the way of those whose imaginations 



158 FOURTH LECTURE. 

are predisposed to conjure up some formidable ot> 
stacle as an apology for not going forward. There 
would be difficulty in the case before us, if the Bible 
could not be viewed as a separate book from the 
distinguishing creeds and confessions of faith which 
different denominations draw from it, while, at the 
same time, they all unite in regarding it as the only 
and infallible record of divine truth. However va- 
luable may be these creeds or articles of belief, pre. 
pared by the hands of men as bonds of union for 
those who embrace them ; we do not admit that in 
our schools, enjoying endowment from the State, 
religion should be taught in any or all of those dis 
tinctive forms. But the Bible is the common pro- 
perty and common treasure of all who take the 
ground of common Christianity ; and we insist that 
a high place be given to this book in training the 
young, which corresponds with the precedence which 
all agree in assigning to it as the supreme and un- 
erring rule of faith and of practice, as the great and 
primary fountain of that wisdom and righteousness 
which are equally essential to the welfare of a na- 
tion and the happiness of man. It is one of the 
peculiar attributes of the Bible that it can speak to 
the heart and conscience, moulding them after its 
own image, with a power that no other book either 
contains within itself or can exercise on the minds 



FOURTH LECTURE. 159 

of its readers. And when we require that a place 
may be assigned to it in our schools as a book for 
learners, which shall belong to no others, we simply 
require that it may be placed where it can have 
occasion and opportunity for displaying this proof 
of its own divinity, and for so influencing the minds 
of its readers while " young and tender," " that our 
sons may be as plants grown up in their youth, that 
our daughters may be as corner stones polished after 
the similitude of a palace." 

And when I ask for this public acknowledgment 
of the great charter of Christianity, I ask for nothing 
more than is already incorporated in our laws as a 
nation. Christianity, essential Christianity, not, be 
it remembered, as any one sect may embrace it, but 
essential Christianity as contained in the Bible, is 
part and parcel of the common law of the land.* 
We see this in every Sabbath observed as a day of 
rest by our legislatures and by our civil authorities. 
To what precept or command do our makers of law 
and ministers of law yield obedience, in thus ob- 
serving one day out of seven, if it is not the com- 
mand of God speaking in his Bible ? We see it in 
the time-honored practice of opening our halls of 
legislation with the solemnities of daily worship. We 
see it in every day of public thanksgiving or humi- 
* Note N. 



160 FOURTH LECTURE. 

liation appointed or recommended by our rulers. In 
these and other instances which we might quote, the 
State acknowledges the Bible, or the religion of the 
Bible, as interwoven with our social institutions. 
Such too is the dictate of enlightened public opinion, 
a power stronger than either the legislature or the 
magistrate, and to which both are always con- 
strained to bow. It ever has been, and we trust 
ever will be, the wise decision of a vast majority in 
our nation, to recognise and acknowledge Christiani- 
ty in every due form, and on every proper occasion ; 
and the man who finds himself aggrieved by it must 
not complain that he is deprived of his rightful 
liberty. He has all the liberty which a man in a 
minority can reasonably claim. He has the liberty 
not to undo and unsettle every thing done and ap- 
proved by the majority of those around him, but the 
liberty to go where he can find institutions and 
neighbors more to his mind. He has " the world 
before him where to choose," but we must fear that 
he has not " Providence his guide." 

We have not forgotten the trite objection, that 
the Bible is a sectarian book, which, as a matter of 
conscience, some men cannot allow their children 
to read. This is the mere cant of infidelity. The 
Bible a sectarian book ! As well might it be said 
that the Most High is a sectarian God. The Bible 



FOURTH LECTURE. 161 

is an emanation from himself. It has neither spirit 
nor attribute which he does not acknowledge as 
belonging to himself. And to talk of those who 
cannot allow their children to read the Bible with- 
out a violation of conscience,^ the same thing as to 
say it violates the conscience of a parent to have his 
child made acquainted with the God that made him. 
The very worst of crimes have often sought shelter 
under the perverted name of conscience. It has 
been plead for burning martyrs at the stake, and for 
setting at naught every thing sacred in faith, justice, 
and mercy. If nothing* is ever to be required or 
enjoined by public authority, against which any 
man may see fit to plead his conscience, the world 
may as well stand still at once. Human society 
cannot advance a single step. It cannot keep the 
ground it has gained. It must fall back till every 
obligation of civilized life is broken. It is against 
the conscience of some men that one should possess 
any property beyond the supply of his bodily wants, 
while another is either hungry or unclothed. It 
is against the conscience of others that, the mar- 
riage covenant should still be held sacred, and that 
the domestic relations should still be maintained and 
enforced. A blind conscience, which has the oppor- 
tunity of becoming enlightened and informed, and yet 
remains in darkness, is equally guilty and inexcu- 



162 FOURTH LECTURE. 

sable as a hard heart which has the means of being 
softened and purified, and yet retains its obduracy. 
Such is the conscience that would prevent a child 
from learning the will of its Maker, as revealed in 
the Bible. We can make no terms with it. 

In conclusion, let it be remembered that the 
whole responsibility of educating the young does not 
lie on the State, however important maybe her part 
in the duty. There is much to be done for this ob- 
ject which, in a country like ours, cannot be done 
in the Common School. Every parent may do much 
in his own family, every pastor may do much 
in his own church to "train up a child in the way 
he should go." But in addition to all this, there is 
a machinery now at work, and which is admirably 
adapted to take up the work of instruction where 
the Common School leaves it off. I refer to our 
Sunday Schools : and but to name them is to praise 
them. They are known by their fruits, their fruits 
among teachers and taught. I view them as among 
the first of the movements in our day for the pros- 
perity and spread of religion in any land, but as 
especially adapted to the condition and wants of 
our own. 

And here you see how beautifully our system of 
government works. The Bible is the only standard 
of divine truth known to the State, and as such she 



FOURTH LECTURE. 163 

can consistently place it in all her schools ; and 
when instruction is to be given in the distinctive 
doctrines by which various denominations stand di- 
vided from each other, the State leaves this work 
to be done by the families gmd churches to which 
the youth respectively belong. If any of them 
choose. to support schools in which their peculiar 
creeds shall be taught, conjointly with the different 
branches of general education, the State interposes 
no objection. On the contrary, she guards the insti- 
tution against injustice and wrong as carefully as if 
it were fostered and sustained by her own bounty. 
She simply declares that she confines her direct aid 
to instruction in what the great mass of her people 
unite in receiving as both according to truth and 
conducive to the public welfare. And in this holy 
duty of training the young in our land, let the 
State fulfil her duty with a liberal hand ; let parents 
and churches be faithful in theis respective spheres, 
and how bright the prospect which opens before us ! 
With the mind of the nation unfettered, and buoyant 
as our free institutions make it ; with the Bible in 
the hand of every youth as soon as he is able to 
read it ; and a sanctuary of worship and instruction 
open to every inquirer, whether old or young, who 
has the will to enter it ; there is a healing and an en- 
lightening influence abroad among the mass of the 



164 FOURTH LECTURE. 

people that in the end will dispel every delusion, 
though, for a time, it may mislead and deceive. 
Truth is thus left to do her own work with her own 
weapons ; and with us, as with every nation, it will 
yet be found that, " Truth is great, and will prevail." 



FIFTH LECTURE, 



In our last two Lectures we have dwelt on the 
principal means by which God prepared the Hebrew 
nation for the privileges and responsibilities of civil 
freedom. He removed them, as we showed you, to 
a new country eminently adapted to the purposes 
which he intended to fulfil, both towards them, and 
through them, towards the nations of the earth. He 
also distinguished them from every other people by 
a wide diffusion of intelligence through all classes, 
enabling them to understand and discharge their 
duties as men, and members of the Commonwealth. 

But while he thus made provision for cultivating 
the mind of the nation, he did not overlook their 
physical condition. Such a competency as will se- 
cure a people against hunger and nakedness, is quite 
as important in its place as the spread of intelligence, 
in order to render them contented and happy ; nor 
can free civil institutions exist any length of time in 
a nation where the mass of the people are permitted 
to sink into the degradation of poverty, and where 
wealth rolls her streams only into the hands of a few. 
The destruction which such a state of things would 
have brought on the fair fabric of freedom which 



166 FIFTH LECTURE. 

God established among the Hebrews was foreseen 
by his all-seeing eye; and to secure them against 
the evils of degrading want on the one hand, and of 
corrupting luxury on the other, he prescribed their 
pursuits and condition in life with extraordina- 
ry care. 

Nomadic life is always more or less allied to 
barbarism, and to reclaim men from the habits of 
wandering hordes, and to give them a fixed dwelling 
place, a residence around which shall cluster the 
humanizing attachments of home, must always be 
viewed as a first step in social improvement. It is 
obvious that in order to effect this great end a man 
must have property in land — he must be enabled to 
look on some suitably defined portion of the earth as 
his own. Rousseau's favorite saying, " the first man 
who enclosed a field and called it mine is the author 
of all the social ills that followed," is not only false, 
but among the most glaring falsehoods which even 
Rousseau ever uttered. This sentiment too, which 
came from his pen nearly a century since, reminds us 
that there is nothing new under the sun. The Social- 
ists, or Communitists, or whatever be the name by 
which they would be called, who, in our day, would 
annul all rights of individual property, and would 
have every thing belong to every man, and yet no- 
thing to any man, are not entitled to claim originality 



FIFTH LECTURE. 167 

in their views. They are but the followers of one 
whose wild notions on all subjects made it matter 
of doubt whether he was most of the infidel or of 
the madman. 

To give a man the ownership of the soil on which 
he dwells, is the only effectual way to encourage and 
secure the cultivation of it ; and while the wealth of 
a nation is thus promoted by his industry, both his 
possessions and his occupation tend to create that 
sense of independence and habit of sobriety and 
endurance which form the distinguishing character 
of a free people. Accordingly, when the Hebrews 
were to become the depositaries of divine truth and 
human rights, the Most High gave them laws which 
were designed to render them generally both own- 
ers and cultivators of land, and to give agriculture 
importance and honor in public estimation. As 
these ordinances involve great principles which lie 
at the very foundation of well organized society, let 
us look at them with care, and see how the obser- 
vance of them among the people tended to cherish 
piety towards God, and both freedom and good go- 
vernment among themselves. 

When the nation was planted in the land of 
promise the tribes drew their various inheritances 
by lot, according to a divine command. But w r hen this 
was done, the law next directed that a portion of 



168 FIFTH LECTURE. 

land should be allotted to every Hebrew, which was 
to be his for ever, which he was to cultivate dur- 
ing his life, and which his children after him were 
to take as their heritage. Except the tribe of Levi, 
for whom other provision was made as the ministers 
of religion and knowledge, every Israelite, who was 
the head of a family, was thus rendered a proprie- 
tor and tiller of the soil. But there was another 
peculiar provision. The land thus allotted to a 
man might pass away from his possession through 
his misfortune or improvidence, and his family be 
thus reduced to poverty, their paternal inheritance 
being irrecoverably lost. Such disasters we see oc- 
curring among ourselves every day. To secure the 
Hebrews against this degradation, and to preserve 
the equality which had been originally established, 
no landed estate could be alienated for more than 
fifty years. This was a leading ordinance in the 
polity of the Hebrews, and created a marked dis- 
tinction between them and other nations ; a distinc- 
tion too, as we will see hereafter, which was of es- 
sential importance in promoting both public and 
private welfare. In Egypt, the country which they 
had just left, the land throughout belonged to the 
king ; and the husbandmen, far from being proprie- 
tors of the fields on which they bestowed their la- 
bor, were rather tenants, paying a permanent rent 



FIFTH LECTURE. 169 

into the royal treasury. So it long continued to be 
in other kingdoms of the world. And so the Hebrews 
were forewarned it would be with them as a con- 
sequence of their folly in choosing to be under a 
king. " He will take your fields," said Samuel, " and 
your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best 
of them, and give them to his servants. And he 
will take the tenth of your seed, and the tenth of 
your sheep, and ye shall be his servants."* Far 
different was the condition of the people while they 
were contented to live under the form of government 
which the Most High gave them at their settlement 
in the land of promise. Then every man was not 
only acknowledged the owner of his land for ever 
and unalienably, but he " sat under his vine and his 
fig tree, and there was none to make him afraid." 
The only estates which could be called entailed were 
those belonging *to the men who would both culti- 
vate and occupy them, thus rendering the husband- 
man the only hereditary nobleman of the nation. For 
it should be remembered, this law did not apply to 
the ownership of houses in cities. They might pass 
away from a man like his gold or silver ; but his 

* The manner in which Ahab sought Naboth's vineyard shows 
how faithfully this picture was drawn, and how recklessly the 
king3 of Israel seized upon a landed inheritance, setting at 
nought the rights of their subjects and the ordinance of God. 

8 



170 FIFTH LECTURE. 

property in land which he was to cultivate for the 
sustenance of himself and his family, could never 
be permanently alienated. Though for a few years 
it might cease to be his, when the year of Jubi- 
lee came round, his inheritance was by law res- 
tored to him, and he was enabled to begin the 
world anew. Indeed, a special law provided that 
any one who had parted with his land might recover 
it at any time, through himself or " his nearest of 
kin/' by paying to the holder whatever might be 
esteemed as the reasonable profits from the property 
until the coming Jubilee. These ordinances secured 
the people against that feudal tyranny which has 
overrun every eastern country at one time or an- 
other, and created a degrading bondage, at war with 
the happiness, and too often with the innocence of 
the many, who were held as vassals and serfs of 
the few.* 

Such being the fundamental laws of the State 
as to agriculture, it naturally followed that the 
occupation of the husbandman became general 
among the people, and was held in high honor. 
Their best and greatest men were more or less cul- 
tivators of the soil. Saul, when made king, was 
found with his oxen. Elisha, when called to be a 
prophet, was employed in following the plough ; and 

* Note 0. 



FIFTH LECTURE. 171 

concerning Uzziah, one of the best kings of Judah, 
we are told that "he loved husbandry." 

Let it be observed, there is nothing in these 
ordinances, or in the pursuits growing out of them, 
which was either designed or calculated to discou- 
rage commerce and the arts. So far as they had any 
bearing on these two great sources of national pros- 
perity and high civilization, they were designed to 
show that both arts and commerce must be sustain- 
ed by the cultivation and products of the earth ; 
and that amidst all the branches of human industry, 
a priority belongs to agriculture, in its influence on 
the moral and physical welfare of man — a truth too 
often overlooked. He would show himself equally a 
novice in political economy and in true philanthropy, 
who would array any one pursuit of human life 
against the others. To give to the body politic the 
symmetry which shall render it healthful and vigor- 
ous, all the branches of human industry must be nou- 
rished and protected according to their respective 
claims, and these will be found to vary according to 
times and circumstances in the history of the world. 
But whether it be the merchant, the mechanic, the 
man of learning, or the agriculturist ; every one who 
surveys the relations which the various pursuits of 
a prosperous nation have to each other, will turn to 
the cultivation of the earth as that which forms the 



172 FIFTH LECTURE. 

basis of wealth and power to the state, and diffuses 
moral and physical health most widely through a 
whole community ; and while he attributes to com- 
merce, to the arts, and to learning their own honor- 
ed places, in promoting not only agriculture itself, 
but also intelligence, refinement, and good will 
among men, he will hold that the mass of a people 
must have the country for their home, and the pur- 
suits of the country for their occupation, if they 
would possess the leading characteristics which are 
so essential to civil freedom. 

To inculcate these important truths was a chief 
design of the laws which gave to agriculture such a 
prominence in the Hebrew nation ; and the effect 
of agricultural life upon their character and condi- 
tion must be known to every one acquainted with 
their history. It produced among the people generally 
a bodily strength and activity, and a power of en- 
durance that tended to render them equally formida- 
ble in war and successful in the labors of industry 
during times of peace. It made their whole country 
throughout like one continued garden, the very rocks, 
we are told, being covered with mould to produce 
vegetation, and the hills being tilled to their highest 
summits. The land was thus enabled to support a 
population that might otherwise seem incredible ; 
and at the same time it furnished the means not 



FIFTH LECTURE. 173 

only for the active exchange of commodities, which 
was usual at their principal festivals, but for that 
extensive foreign commerce which, in the days of 
Solomon, so enriched the nation that " gold was laid 
up as dust, and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the 
brooks." Nor was it until a spirit of cupidity, pride, 
and luxury, generated by the gains of commerce, 
had brought into neglect the labors of the husband- 
man, that the strong arm of the nation was palsied, 
and she fell a prey to her invaders. 

But there were still further advantages resulting 
from these enactments, and which had an important 
moral influence on the people. 

They stripped poverty of its worst evils. " The 
poor ye have always with you," saith our Saviour, 
and the words are only another version of the de- 
claration of Moses, " the poor shall not cease out of 
the land." But although poverty cannot be entirely 
prevented while sin and sorrow abound in the world, 
its bitterest evils may be greatly alleviated. Its 
sense of degradation may be removed. Its squalid- 
ness and despair may be cured. Its bitterest suffer- 
ings may be lightened by the hope of better days 
either for the man himself or for his children. You 
may save him from becoming the malignant enemy, 
or the inert burden of his race. You may save him 
from the heart-breaking pang of looking at the home 



1Y4 FIFTH LECTURE. 

where his fathers dwelt, and he himself was born, 
now in the hands of a stranger, and never again to 
acknowledge him as its owner. Such was the effect 
of the law which restored to every man his landed 
inheritance on the year of Jubilee. It kept his heart 
whole. It preserved within him a love of home. 
It kept alive, even among the most destitute, a spirit 
of hope, and a love of independence ; for every one 
could look forward to a day when the home of his 
fathers, and the place of his own birth, would again 
be in the possession of himself or of his children. 
His flocks and herds might have been taken from 
him, and have gone for ever. His best ornaments 
might have been given up, never to be regained. 
But the land on which he might dwell, and by 
his industry recover his lost place among his breth- 
ren, was always there, and his claim upon it inde- 
feasible. 

Allied to this was another important public ad- 
vantage growing principally out of the laws and 
ordinances to be observed at the year of Jubilee. I 
refer to their happy effect in preventing the evils of 
accumulated debt. Oppressive indebtedness, whether 
public or private, is one of the worst calamities that 
can afflict a people. It often weakens the tone of 
sound moral feeling, and "leads into temptation" 
too strong to be resisted. There were several ordi- 



FIFTH LECTURE. 175 

nances in the Hebrew Commonwealth bearing di- 
rectly on this subject, and all of them framed on 
the principles of obvious wisdom. Experience shows 
that just so far as some men are willing to lend, 
others will be desirous to borrow; in other words, 
to whatever extent credit will be given, men can 
be found desirous of taking it. The consequence 
is, that where the facilities for contracting debt are 
unwisely multiplied, a just sense of obligations is 
lessened, and fraudulent insolvencies generally fol- 
low. It is not difficult to see how such a train of 
evils is to be prevented. No one can borrow if there 
is no one to lend ; and if one man has little motive 
or inducement to lend, another will have little op- 
portunity or ability to borrow. On this simple princi- 
ple do we find those laws of the Hebrews constructed 
which were designed to prevent them from contract- 
ing heavy debts. They had their " usury " law, but 
it was entirely different from ours. # It expressly 

* " Usury " means, property, that which is paid for the use of 
any thing, whether money, clothing, or whatever one man may 
lend to another. In this sense it is to be understood in the 
command, "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; 
usury of money, usury of victuals, or usury of any thing that is 
lent upon usury. Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; 
but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury." At present, 
and among us, the word is used to denote exorbitant or unlawful 
interest on loans of money, being one of many instances which 
show how the meaning of words is changed with the lapse of time. 



176 FIFTH LECTURE. 

forbade one Hebrew to take from another any hire 
or consideration for the use of money, or other article 
of value which he might lend. They had also their 
statute of limitations. It took effect at every Jubilee, 
when all debts, wherever or however contracted, 
were cancelled; and then also came the all-important 
release, which, on that memorable day, restored every 
one to the landed inheritance of his fathers, freeing 
it from every claim that any other occupant or cul- 
tivator may have previously asserted with regard to 
it. These being settled and well-known laws res- 
pecting the validity of obligations, the creditor could 
not complain. If he disregarded them the fault was 
his own ; and although in an extensively commercial 
community such statutes would be deemed too strin- 
gent, yet they contain a lesson as to the evil of 
running into debt, that all men in all pursuits would 
do well to remember. Especially in an agricultural 
community they were the life of the people ; they 
saved many an inheritance from being squandered, 
many a family from being scattered, and many a 
heart from being broken and driven to despair. And 
I here take occasion to add that it must give every 
true philanthropist pleasure to perceive that many 
of those great principles of wisdom, equity, and 
mercy, which were embodied in these ordinances of 
the Hebrew Commonwealth, are becoming more 



FIFTH LECTURE. Ill 

and more understood and brought into notice in our 
day, though with a difference of form adapted to 
the present condition of society. In times not long 
past, creditors who would even act the part of Shy- 
locks, had all in their own way. They could tempt 
the necessitous into ruinous indebtedness, and then 
exact the pound of flesh from their unhappy debt- 
or, or doom him to a prison where the whole man 
was wasted till he sank into the grave. We now 
consider imprisonment for debt, and which often 
placed the unfortunate on a level with the criminal, 
as a remnant of barbarism. The principle involved 
in the law among the Hebrews, protecting a landed 
inheritance from perpetual alienation, also begins 
to be appreciated. A statute has already been 
adopted by one of our States, and is contemplated 
by others, which is appropriately entitled " Exemp- 
tion of the Homestead," as it exempts a man's dwell- 
ing from liability on account of his debts, in order 
that his family may be protected from expulsion 
and poverty, and that he may himself have a shelter 
for his own head, while he summons his energies to 
make further effort for them and for himself. If 
all our legislatures would adopt some provision like 
this, which might both mitigate misfortune and hold 
out encouragement for reformation, the country 
might, in a great degree, be relieved from that 



178 FIFTH LECTUE. 

squalid destitution, and despairing helplessness 
which, from the nature of the case, must be too 
often encountered in our crowded cities.* 

This leads me to notice as another proof of the 
propitious influence of agriculture upon civil freedom : 

Its tendency to produce among a people a spirit 
of equality and close sympathy one with another. 
Extremes are prone to meet. In our cities we find 
wealth and poverty, intelligence and ignorance, re- 
finement and debasement, in immediate view of 
each other ; and notwithstanding the philanthropic 
labors which would bring the abundance of the rich 
to the relief of the poor, destitution and degradation 
must remain in painful contrast with luxury and 
pride. It was an unerring hand that drew, in the 
picture of Tyre, a description which applies more 
or less to all our great marts of commerce. — " Thou 
art a merchant of the people, and art situated at 
the entry of the sea, and thou hast said I am ot 
perfect beauty. — By thy wisdom, and by thy traffic 
thou hast increased thy riches, and thine heart is 
lifted up because of thy riches." Notwithstand- 
ing the indispensable importance of our cities for 
carrying out the great purposes of civilized life, not 
only as they form the centres of intercourse between 

*Note P. 



FIFTH LECTURE. 179 

nations, but also give a tone and polish to manners, 
brighten and invigorate the faculties by the close 
contact of men with men in their daily pursuits ; 
yet must the great majority of the population, from 
the very nature of their pursuits, remain so divid- 
ed from each other as to produce something like 
a spirit of caste. Buying and selling, the giving 
of wages and the receiving of wages, which are the 
principal transactions of city life, place men in an 
attitude of collision, and create ah antagonism of 
interests which tend to impair sympathy and com* 
munity of feeling. The prizes in commerce also are 
comparatively few ; while one man rises, other men 
often sink; and thus is the distance perpetuated 
which separates one class from another, and shuts 
out that sentiment of equality which is essential to a 
well-compacted Republic. For this equality, and 
the sympathy which grows out of it, we must look 
among those who are not dependant on the will of 
another for the employment by which they subsist, 
but who rely on the soil which they claim as their 
own, for every thing needful to their comfort and 
their welfare. The influence of such a position and 
such occupation in imparting a spirit of indepen- 
dence and self-reliance is seen wherever agriculture 
is pursued, and is held in merited honor. Though 
a man cultivates or owns but his hundred, or his 



180 FIFTH LECTURE. 

fifty acres, he feels that he has rank, and fellowship 
with his neighbor who may cultivate his thousands. 
They are both drawn together by a community of 
employment and of interests that leads them to 
forget the difference which arises from the mere 
amount of their respective possessions. Many who 
now hear me have felt the truth of what I am say- 
ing. There are constant examples of it at those 
annual and praiseworthy assemblages of our agri- 
culturists, where they meet and bring together the 
choicest productions of their respective fields ; the 
man of affluence, and the man of moderate competen- 
cy standing side by side with mutual respect and 
goodwill ; he who knows most of agriculture as a 
science, imparting the fruit of his studies, and he 
who is best versed in the practice, telling of his 
experience ; both acknowledging the bond that 
unites them in the cultivation of the earth. 

Agriculture also tends to strengthen the love of 
a people to their own country. It must be obvious to 
every one acquainted with the habits of living and 
the tenure of property in our cities, that they are 
not favorable to the growth of strong local attach- 
ments. The few square feet occupied by the inha- 
bitant as a home, generally belongs to another, and 
not to himself; and even where the occupant of a 
house is its owner, his feelings cannot become bound 



FIFTH LECTURE. 181 

to its walls by the ties which bind the heart of the 
husbandman to his fields on which he bestows his 
careful labor, and which respond to his industry by 
clothing themselves in the rich beauties of spring, 
summer and harvest. Especially will these attach- 
ments be strengthened if the land which he now pos- 
sesses has come down to him as an inheritance from 
his ancestors through generation after generation ; 
and is thus associated with all the feelings of love and 
reverence with which he cherishes their memories. 
There is still another point which should not be 
overlooked in this connection : I refer to the health- 
ful sobriety of mind which the occupations and scenes 
of life in the country are calculated to cherish. There 
is quite as much truth as poetry in the words, 

" God made the country, man made the town." 

And if any one will compare his own feelings when 
he goes forth among the fields covered with the rich 
gifts of a Creator's hand, and when again he treads 
our streets, hemmed in by walls of human workman- 
ship, he will be at no loss to tell in which of the two 
his mind is rendered most conscious of the presence 
and authority of the Most High. While Adam yet 
bore the fresh and unsullied image of his Maker, he 
was placed in Eden " to dress it and to keep it," as 
an employment best suited to his state of innocence, 



182 FIFTH LECTURE. 

and as a means of preserving it. The contempla- 
tion of scenes in which " Nature leads up to Na- 
ture's God," always tends to impart a tone of moral 
health, and to form a solidity of character which, 
especially in a nation enjoying the privilege of self- 
government, are all important as a balance to the 
turbulent fervor often generated in our cities. It 
is in such an atmosphere that the mind is generally 
most unclouded, and can look beyond the things of 
a day. Nor should it be forgotten that amidst such 
scenes and occupations every free nation has found 
many of her greatest patriots and statesmen. 

We might dwell still farther on the effects of 
agriculture, and of the divine laws respecting it, 
given to the Hebrews ; but enough has been said 
to show how it was interwoven with their religion 
as the people of God, and with their freedom as a 
Commonwealth. Let us now consider how far this 
feature in their polity and condition was designed 
to look beyond their land, and to furnish instruction 
to a nation like our own. 

Great principles never change, although the 
application of them must vary according to varying 
times and circumstances ; and unwise, if not im- 
practicable, as it would be in modern times and 
among modern nations to adopt the entire system of 
Hebrew laws respecting the ownership and cultiva- 



FIFTH LECTURE. 183 

tion of the earth, there is a very instructive lesson to 
be learned from them respecting the place which 
should be assigned to agriculture as a source of 
national prosperity and power in every land. The 
facilities peculiar to our own country, inviting the 
mass of the people to this invigorating occupation, 
have contributed largely to the establishment of her 
freedom and her growth in power ; and because we 
do not think the merciful ordering of Divine Pro- 
vidence towards our nation in this respect is rightly 
estimated, we invite your careful attention to it. 

The boasted liberty of Greece and of Rome 
was rather the liberty of a city than of a whole 
country or nation. Strangers as they were to the 
principle of representation, through which the sober 
judgment cherished by a country life could have 
been brought to keep in check the impetuous ardor 
of their political assemblies ; every great public 
measure took its direction from the populace who 
dwelt in the capital. " Hence," as Alison has well 
remarked, " the violence, the anarchy, and the in- 
consistency by which their history was so often 
distinguished, and which, though concealed amid 
the blaze of ancient eloquence, the searching eye of 
modern history has so fully illustrated." We could 
scarcely hope that the liberties enjoyed by our Re- 
public would outlast a single generation in our 



184 FIFTH LECTURE. 

cities, if they were severed from their political con- 
nexion with the country around them. It has often 
been said, that Paris is France for every political 
purpose, and this may be one great reaspn why all 
their late attempts to acquire freedom have been so 
abortive in the French nation. The land does not 
possess an independent intelligent yeomanry to con- 
trol and moderate the mercurial spirits of her metro- 
polis ; and we fully believe that, under God, much 
of our safety from the evils that are supposed by 
some to threaten us as a nation is found in the broad 
expanse of territory which is yet to be improved by 
the hand of husbandry, and in the growing desire 
of our own citizens, and of the multitudes that flock 
to us from abroad, to become owners and tillers of 
our fruitful soil. 

The illustrious Burke, " the unrivalled prophet of 
politics," as he is sometimes called, described, many 
years ago, a crowd of American Tartars, armed with 
the pike and the sabre, pouring from the West over 
the Alleghanies, and sweeping away the wealth and 
population of our Eastern cities, grown indolent and 
defenceless by the natural course of popular govern- 
ment and profligate prosperity. True prophet as 
that great statesman was when he foretold the re- 
sults of the French revolution, his wisdom forsook 
him when he looked towards America. We find s&ore 



FIFTH LECTURE. 185 

truth and statesman-like sagacity in another distin- 
guished writer, who, although a foreigner, better un- 
derstood our position and prospects. We also quote 
him with the more pleasure, for, though it is only 
about a quarter of a century since he wrote, and his 
predictions were then considered as uttered in lan- 
guage extravagantly figurative, they are already in 
process of literal fulfilment. He speaks of " the elec- 
tric agency of the Post and the Press." The electric 
spark passing over the wires fulfils his prediction 
as to the one ; and we look for a time not far distant 
when the same powerful agent will effect a similar 
improvement in the other. Science has only just be- 
gun to discover the value of electricity in promoting 
the purposes of human life and human improvement. 
It has already shown that the most rapid movements 
of the Post in former times were comparatively 
sluggish. It has now to show that all our past im- 
provements in the art of printing have left it a slow 
process, when compared with its rapid working 
after it shall have called to its aid the speed of 
the lightning. 

"The people of the United States," he writes, 
" find themselves in a condition to devote their whole 
energies to the cultivation of their vast natural re- 
sources. Undisturbed by wars, unburdened by op- 
pressive taxes, unfettered by old prejudices and cor- 



186 FIFTH LECTURE. 

ruptions ; enjoying the united advantages of an 
infant and a mature society, they are able to apply 
the highly refined science and art of Europe to the 
improvement of the virgin soil and unoccupied na- 
tural riches of America. They start unincumbered 
by a thousand evils, political and moral, which weigh 
down the energies of the old world. The volume 
of our history lies before them ; they may adopt 
our improvements, avoid our errors, take warning 
from our sufferings ; and, with the combined lights 
of our experience and their own, build up a more 
perfect form of society ! Even already they have 
given some momentous and salutary truths to the 
world. Their rapid growth has first developed the 
astonishing results of the productive powers of 
population. We can now calculate with much cer- 
tainty that America, which yet presents to the eye, 
generally, the aspect of an untrodden forest, w T ill, in 
the short space of one century, surpass Europe in 
the number of its inhabitants. We even hazard 
little in predicting that before the tide of civilization 
has rolled back to its original seats, Assyria, Persia, 
and Palestine, an intelligent population of two or 
three hundred millions will have overspread the 
New World, and extended the empire of knowledge 
and of the arts from Cape Horn to Alaska. Among 
the vast mass of civilized men, there will be but two 



FIFTH LECTURE. 187 

languages spoken. The effect of this single circum- 
stance in accelerating the progress of society can 
scarcely be foreseen. What a field will then be 
opened to the man of science, the artist, the popular 
writer who addresses a hundred millions of educated 
persons ! What a stimulus given to mental energy 
and social improvement, when every useful dis- 
covery will be communicated instantaneously to so 
great a mass of intelligent beings, by the electric 
agency of the Post and Press ! Imagination is lost 
in attempting to estimate the effects of such accu- 
mulated means and powers. One result, however, 
may be anticipated. America must then become 
the centre of knowledge, civilization and power." 
Comparing the views of these two distinguished 
men, I am reminded of the judicious observation made 
by a shrewd writer, " that it would have been well 
for theology if commentators could have been content 
to take, and not give a meaning, when professing to 
expound the Sacred Scriptures. 9 ' It is equally true 
that it would have been well for the world if states- 
men had contented themselves with taking, instead of 
giving a meaning, when studying the history of na- 
tions. And perhaps there is no nation on the face of 
the earth whose example and position have in this 
respect been more misunderstood and misrepresented 
than our own. We can readily account for it. The 



188 FIFTH LECTURE. 

great questions respecting Church and State, which 
engage public attention and divide public opinion in 
Europe, are, in America, brought to the decisive test 
of experiment ; but experiments in civil and ecclesi- 
astical polity are not to be completed with the speedy 
action of an electric battery. They require time and 
careful deliberate examination. The causes which 
are most effectual in producing the final results may, 
for a long time, be acting with a latent power ; and 
during the process, appearances may be evolved that 
will lead a hasty and superficial observer to con- 
clusions directly at variance with what may be found 
in the end to be truth and reality. Indeed, it is 
generally seen that the most valuable results are 
those which require the most time, and pass through 
the greatest variety of changes, before they are fully 
developed. When our fruit trees are in bloom, an 
observer, who is a stranger to their nature, might 
suppose that they were designed to answer the same 
end with the violet, the rose and the lily, to produce 
their flower and nothing more ; but if he waits, he 
will find that the blossom was only an incipient form 
in which the life of the tree displayed itself, and in 
which it made preparation for the growth and ma- 
turity of the nutricious fruit. 

Much, if not the whole of this seems to be for- 
gotten by several political economists abroad, who 



FIFTH LECTURE. 189 

take opposite sides on the questions which they seek 
to determine by what is occurring in this country. 
They act with the hot haste of the empiric who will 
seize upon every new and imperfect result and try 
to force it into the support of his own favorite theory. 
This unphilosophic and selfish determination to bend 
facts into a correspondence with foregone conclu- 
sions, instead of drawing conclusions from facts de- 
liberately weighed after they have been fairly as- 
certained, has led many able men abroad into most 
strange, if not ridiculous mistakes. They would 
build for America with the square, and compass, and 
plumb line of Europe ; and when they find any diver- 
gence from their rules of beauty and stability, they 
condemn the edifice as raised in ignorance and 
doomed to early ruin. They forget that many of the 
usages in both Church and State, which might have 
been wise centuries ago, are now to be viewed as ob- 
solete and behind the age. They seem as if they had 
yet to learn that there are sources of good working 
their way in the New World which were never felt in 
the Old ; and that there are causes of suffering and 
evil in the Old that have no existence in the New. 
To refer to the predictions of Burke. We reply 
to it, that the spirit of the Tartars has never emi- 
grated to the Western Hemisphere. It cannot take 
root in a region like this. The natural and constant 



190 FIFTH LECTURE. 

course of events with us is directly the reverse of 
the aims and achievements of Tartar hordes rushing 
down from their wilds to ravage states and cities 
grown weak and effeminate by luxury and indo- 
lence. Our elder states and cities do not grow 
defenceless or weak, as he supposed, by the natural 
course of popular government and long prosperity. 
Our far west is not left to be a barren wild, occupied 
only by barbarians, savage and untamed. On the 
contrary, our own people from our Eastern States, 
and thousands upon thousands from our Eastern 
Hemisphere are pouring year after year into that 
vast wilderness, and subduing the rich soil to the 
purposes of civilization and refinement. There is 
no war waged upon the older states by marauders 
pouring down from the Alleghanies, with pike and 
sabre to plunder and pillage the wealth and luxuries 
they could not find at home. But the invasion is 
from the older States upon the new ; and the only 
war carried on, is with the wilderness, with the 
forest, and with the unreclaimed prairie. Instead of 
the invaders leaving behind them, and on their path, 
desolation, such as marked the way of Tartars, Goths 
or Vandals ; their progress is known by " the wilder- 
ness becoming a fruitful field," and the evidences of 
a wealth which they had not wrested from others, 
but created for themselves. They are opening and 



FIFTH LECTURE. 191 

widening the resources of new States, which, instead 
of abstracting from the wealth and safety of the 
old, afford them a prop and means of recovery, when 
the convulsions of commerce may have shattered 
their strength and impaired their resources. 

It cannot fail to be seen that in these peculiar 
features of our country the Great Disposer of events 
has rendered agriculture a leading and prominent 
employment in America, as he formerly made it in 
Palestine. There he established this order of things 
by express laws. Here he has done it by the decree 
and the movements of his Providence. We cannot 
change it if we would ; and if we rightly understand 
our own welfare as a free nation, we would not 
change it if we could. The wisest and greatest of 
philanthropists and statesmen abroad see its results, 
and are now taking lessons of wisdom for themselves 
from our experience. To quote once more from one 
of them who may well be ranked among the most 
able men of our age ; — 

" America," he has recently said, " America seems 
to have been reserved as a land of experiment for 
these latter times, a vast field in which all the les- 
sons essential to the prosperity of Europe may be 
exhibited to the eye of nations. The first lesson is 
given in its agriculture. The husbandmen of Ame- 
rica are shown to be the true strength of the country ; 



192 FIFTH LECTURE. 

it is the culture of the earth that the State falls back 
upon in all its difficulties. All the showy expedients 
for fabricating wealth out of nothing, which are so 
familiar in Europe, are there proved to be fallacies 
on the largest scale of demonstration. Trading 
without capital, and currency without specie, are 
the two grand charlatanries of the world. America 
has tried them both, and again and again has seen 
her thousands utterly ruined. Yet all this passes 
by ; the land again brings forth her produce ; the 
strong husbandman props up the shattered merchant 
— the State, like a sickly patient, recovers by the 
diet of the farm. The country has such a mine of 
wealth in the soil, such facilities for recovery in the 
plough and the spade, such endless storehouses of 
national wealth in the forest, the prairie, and the 
mountain, that the commercial ruin is no more felt 
than the peasant feels the mouldering of the leaves 
which fell in the last autumn, and which are at the 
moment preparing a new fertility for the soil."* 

The picture can hardly be said to be too highly 
colored. It recals to our minds occasions of commer- 

* In some of the preceding paragraphs I have used the lan- 
guage of distinguished writers abroad, the more freely in order 
to show that these views respecting the resources and prospects 
of America are not confined to Americans. The estimate of our 
country by statesmen in Europe has been greatly and justly 
changed within the last few years. 



FIFTH LECTURE. 193 

cial distress which are of too frequent occurrence ; 
and when we look back to the times in which we 
have seen fortunes wrecked, hearts broken ; and 
sometimes honesty violated, honor lost, and the 
grave left as the only hiding place from the storm ; 
we would raise the voice of warning to the youth 
of our country against the too prevalent desire for 
rushing into the marts of commerce, and neglecting, 
or undervaluing the noble occupation of tilling the 
earth. Ardent haste is the attribute of youth, whether 
it be in a young man or in a young nation ; and the 
" haste to become rich " by a successful adventure 
that would accomplish all in a day, and not by the 
patient labor of a life, is the besetting sin of many 
in our youthful nation. It leads them too often to 
look on the labors of husbandry as tame, spiritless 
and unpromising; and to rush with inconsiderate 
ambition into our large cities, which have often 
proved a vast Maelstrom to the hopes and the lives 
of those who would have met with a different end 
had they called their energies into action in a dif- 
ferent sphere. 

As a remedy for this too prevalent tendency, let 
us ask, have the public authorities of the land done 
their duty to put honor on agriculture, and to render 
it attractive as an employment leading to both profit 
and distinction ? Although we have a soil of such 



194 FIFTH LECTURE. 

variety and richness, that it might reward the hand 
of industry with every product that can minister to 
health or comfort, its fertility has never been fairly 
tested. Our experiments are yet merely on the sur- 
face. The wealth that lies beneath remains to be 
explored and developed ; and to accomplish this 
great end adequately and successfully, we need 
something more than the industry of individuals. 
We need instruction in agriculture as a profession. 
We need agricultural schools or colleges, to teach 
how science can be applied to develope and improve 
the riches of the earth. Every State in the nation 
should found and endow them either as independent 
and separate institutions, or as distinct departments 
of institutions already existing. They would scatter 
their benefits broadcast over the land, adding to the 
public wealth, and giving to the agriculturist his 
share in the improved intelligence of our day. He 
is now often left to work in the dark, to spend labor 
in vain which adequate instruction would enable 
him to render doubly available. It is due also to 
science that she should now have an opportunity 
both to vindicate her claims to public favor and to 
redeem lost time. In former ages of the world she 
confined herself to the cloister. She seemed to fear 
that her dignity and delicacy would suffer by allow- 
ing the sweet air of the fields to breathe upon her 



FIFTH LECTURE. 195 

cheek, or by lending her aid to any of the practical 
pursuits of life. She has become wearied of an ex- 
istence both sickly and useless ; and now comes forth 
and goes about doing good, gaining strength and 
brightness from her active labors. She has given 
skill and success to the mechanic, the manufacturer, 
and the mariner ; and she waits to pour her wealth 
of knowledge into the ear of the husbandman, to 
lessen the weight of his toil, and yet give him a 
richer harvest. Little as she has yet been allowed 
to do for him, compared with her power and her 
will to serve him, she has already so improved his 
implements that he can accomplish in an hour an 
amount of service that would once have consumed 
whole days. She has discovered to him mines of 
wealth in what he once considered as wastes and 
blemishes on the earth. She has taught him that 
the marsh once dreaded as a source of disease and 
suffering to himself, may be converted into the 
means of fertilizing his fields ; and that much of what 
he once labored to cast away as refuse and loss, 
are his best sources of gain, the means which nature 
provides for the restoration of her own exhausted 
energies. Did we only understand the wise economy 
of the Creator throughout the whole of his works, 
we would see how carefully he has framed his laws 
to gather up the " fragments that nothing be lost." 



196 FIFTH LECTURE* 

One great end of modern discoveries is to show how 
this may be done, how everything may be turned 
to wise account in promoting the comfort and be- 
nefit of man. Let science do her appropriate work 
for the husbandman, and the very desert would be 
converted into a fruitful field. The wilds that have 
lain for ages as blots on the page of nature, are a 
reproach to man, not to his Maker — a proof of our 
want of knowledge, not of His want of wisdom and 
mercy. His " goodness is over all His works," and 
we owe it alike to Him and to ourselves that we 
should be enabled to appreciate the wise bounty of 
his hand, and improve it for the benefit of our race. 
And while this should be viewed as the duty of all 
civilized nations, it becomes especially important 
in a country like ours, where husbandry is not only 
the great means of providing for the wants of life, 
but is also interwoven with the preservation of our 
civil freedom. 



In drawing the whole subject to a conclusion, 
we observe that, highly as we ought to value civil 
freedom, we should be careful not to expect too 
much from it. It is not a panacea for every ill of 
life. " I have seen an end of all perfection," says 
the Psalmist, and he had not to go far in order to 



FIFTH LECTURE. 197 

find it. It would meet his eye in every thing which 
belongs to earth and time. All government, whether 
devised or administered by man, must have its im- 
perfections ; and the forgetfulness of this plain truth 
creates in the minds of many a spirit of ingratitude 
and discontent. They would treat our government 
as the heathens treat some of their idols. When 
every thing is bright and prosperous they exalt it 
to the skies ; but when public disasters or times of 
trial come they turn round and revile what they had 
previously idolized. In our fallen world evil is so 
universally mingled with good that we have but a 
choice between evils ; and our wisdom is shown by 
contentment with benefits in which the least amount 
of evil is mingled with the greatest amount of good. 
The history of all nations, whether ancient or mo- 
dern, shows that there is no depositary of political 
power where it is not liable to abuse ; and the per- 
fection of wise statemanship is seen in placing it 
where it may be more securely guarded, or where 
abuse, if committed, may be so restricted as to be 
least injurious to the people. 

Our government proceeds on the principle that 
power is best guarded when placed in the hands of 
the people themselves, for if wrong is done they are 
the first to feel it, and will be most anxious to re- 
medy it. But if public measures are to be submitted 



198 FIFTH LECTURE. 

to the public voice, we must expect to see clamor 
and strife when the freedom of public opinion and 
public discussion have arrayed party against party. 
If we are protected from the tyranny of power in 
the hands of one or a few whose will is law, we 
must exercise a constant vigilance over ourselves 
and others, that the great principles of liberty and 
equality suffer no violation. If we are safe from the 
exactions to which the subject must submit to gra- 
tify the ambition or pride of royalty, we must also 
be ready of our own accord ht times to sacrifice 
something of our own ease, perhaps also of our own 
interests, in order to promote and preserve the good 
of the Commonwealth. Such is the price which 
must be paid for the enjoyment of civil freedom, and 
they who think the price of more value than the 
prize must seek relief where the people do not 
bear rule. 

In viewing our condition as a Republic, we 
should keep in mind that the government with us is 
better or worse just according as " we, the people," 
choose to make it the one or the other ; and it is 
generally found that those who complain most, are 
the very men who do the least to rectify the evils 
from which they profess to be suffering. The ballot- 
box, the election of the rulers by the ruled, is our 
great means of redress against public wrongs, our 



FIFTH LECTURE. 199 

great means of effecting whatever is most condu- 
cive to public good. It is an essential feature in the 
structure of civil freedom, which gives vitality and 
stability to the whole. But how many talk loudly 
respecting the right of suffrage, who never seem to 
have reflected on the duty of suffrage ; and as an 
excuse for their neglect, they will plead that they 
wish to have nothing to do with politics? If by 
this vague expression they mean that they will not 
mingle in the bitter strifes of party, that they will 
not join in measures foul and dishonest for hunting 
down the reputation of an opposite candidate, that 
they will enter into no corrupting combination to 
delude the public mind — then, they are right in 
having nothing to do with politics. But if they 
mean by it that they will be at no pains to consult 
with the wise and the good as to what may be for 
the welfare of their country ; that they will put them- 
selves to no inconvenience in order to see that " able 
men " are presented to the people for office ; that 
they will not spare time from their business to ex- 
ercise their right of suffrage on behalf of such can- 
didates when offered ; then, if they will have nothing 
to do with politics, the time may soon come when they 
and their children can have nothing to do with free- 
dom. Let sober and intelligent citizens indulge such 
supineness, and the consequence is both plain and 



200 FIFTH LECTURE. 

inevitable. Our free institutions must fall into the 
hands of the depraved and worthless, to be pervert- 
ed to public injury, if not to public ruin. 

We speak without reference to party. The faults 
may be equally chargeable upon men of all parties 
in the State. We allude to every member of the 
Commonwealth who enjoys protection from the 
government. It is a duty which he owes to himself, 
to his country, and to his Maker, to inform himself 
in matters of public interest, and to act according to 
the best light he can gain. 

Treason is not to be feared in a nation like ours 
while the friends of freedom and good order are 
awake to their duty, and on the alert to fulfil it. It 
was "while men slept that the enemy came and 
sowed tares among the wheat." And if men who 
possess integrity and intelligence will not bring their 
aid to the support and defence of the national pri- 
vileges which they inherit from their fathers, they 
will find, when too late, that they have sold their 
birthright for a price more shameful than a mess of 
pottage — for the indulgence of their own ease ; and 
that freedom may be lost by their own fault as ir- 
retrievably as if wrested from them by the hand 
of some overpowering usurper. Every man should 
remember that his influence, whether in Church or 
State, is felt for good or for evil. It is a talent, 



FIFTH LECTURE. 201 

however small he may esteem it, which he is not 
at liberty to " keep laid up in a napkin ;" and he is 
one day to be called to account for its improvement. 

There is still another concluding observation 
which we would urge with much earnestness on the 
minds of rulers and ruled. It is our great responsi- 
bility as a Republic. We hold our free institutions 
as a trust from the Most High God, not only for the 
benefit of ourselves and our children, but of all the 
oppressed nations of the earth. 

When the United Provinces of the Netherlands 
had commenced their struggles for independence, 
the first coin which they issued bore the emblem of 
a vessel at sea struggling with the waves, without 
either sail or oar, and with the motto, "Incertum 
quo fata ferunt." Complicated and appalling as 
were the disadvantages with which Holland had to 
struggle in her noble effort for freedom, and doubt- 
ful at the first as she deemed the result, had she 
been overpowered in the end her fall would not 
have closed the door of hope against other nations. 
They might still have been encouraged to aspire 
after freedom, when they could have unfurled her 
banner under better auspices. But if free institu- 
tions cannot be maintained in this country, what is 
left for others to expect? Must they not conclude 

that, after all, a republic is more of a name than a 

9* 



202 FIFTH LECTURE. 

reality ; rather a Utopian dream than a substantial 
and practicable good ? If with our advantages, as 
we have described them, of geographical position, 
of general intelligence and enlightened Christianity, 
civil freedom is not to be preserved in our land, is 
she not to be viewed like the dove of the patriarch, 
as barely hovering over a world so covered with a 
deluge of ruin and a strife of elements as to allow 
her no resting place for the sole of her foot ? 

The nation should then view herself as " a city 
set upon a hill, that cannot be hid." If the experi- 
ment of free government fails in our hands, our fall 
brings down with it the hopes of the world. The 
eyes of multitudes, who are suffering bondage and 
oppression, are fixed upon us with the conviction 
that the issue with us determines the future for them. 
It is our destiny either to be the deep grave where 
their hopes are to be entombed in darkness, or the 
brightening pillar of light that shall invite them 
from bondage to liberty and peace. 

Such a responsibility, although sublime and in- 
spiriting, carries with it consequences that are exceed- 
ingly solemn. We feel that He " who ruleth over the 
kingdoms of the earth," has called us to bear it ; and 
the banner of the nation seems to remind us that the 
founders of our Republic assumed it deliberately, and 
with high yet humble confidence as to the result. 



FIFTH LECTURE. 203 

They chose as the national emblem, not a vessel 
struggling with the waves, without sail or oar, but 
the eagle on outspread wings ready either to face 
the storm or soar above it, bearing in its beak the 
motto, "E pluribus unum," as the foundation on 
which, under God, they built their trust And to 
the Union, the integrity and perpetuity of the Union 
among the States, rendering the confederacy " one 
and indivisible, now and for ever," the statesmen who 
wear their mantle still look as the source of our 
strength and our prosperity. The Union is to Liberty 
like the fabled Cestus, or zone of Venus, giving sym- 
metry, beauty, life, and finish to the whole form ; 
while without it, all is imperfection, disorder, and 
exposure. It is the very point of public welfare 
which the acknowledged Father of his country seems 
to have touched with a tremulous hand in his last 
farewell, as he brought to view the dangers that 
might assail us when he should be in his grave. In- 
deed, in that memorable address, which breathes 
throughout the anxieties of a parental regard, it 
seems to have dwelt on his mind as a grateful and 
hallowed recollection, that when he and his com- 
patriots gave us freedom and independence as our 
heritage, they gave us also " the United States " as 
a name by which we should first be known among 
nations ; trusting that, having borne it from infancy, 



204 FIFTH LECTURE. 

we would look upon every attempt to efface it 
from the national escutcheon as both profanity and 
treason. As we have received it thus solemnly con- 
secrated to our keeping, were we now to throw it 
away, or allow it to be lost, we would bring upon 
ourselves not only a misfortune, but a guilt against 
God and man which might justly be punished in 
torrents of blood, and in the end by a grinding des- 
potism sought as the only relief from the sword of 
civil war. 

But notwithstanding the excitement of debate, 
and the irritation arising from actual wrongs, we 
cannot persuade ourselves that the nation is ever to 
become so lost to her own welfare, and the welfare 
of the world, as to allow her noble confederacy to 
be rent asunder and destroyed. The union of the 
United States in America does not depend, as did 
the union of the tribes among the Hebrews, on the 
wayward and unfeeling tyranny of a king refusing 
all due concessions to the demands of justice. It 
was created in a spirit of compromise and conces- 
sion among States equally sovereign, whether small 
or great ; it was prompted by a sense then deeply 
felt of the danger to all if there was not a union 
of all ; and we fully believe that, with the blessing 
of the Most High, which has hitherto followed us, 
by a like spirit of moderation and good will, and 



FIFTH LECTURE. 205 

by a scrupulous care to preserve inviolate the an- 
cient landmarks of the federacy, the Union will still 
be maintained. Its strength has already, and more 
than once, been tried by strong disturbing forces; 
and prophets of evil have arisen, both at home and 
abroad, who have foretold a disastrous issue. We 
have outlived both them and their predictions. The 
confederation is still unbroken, and general attach- 
ment to it is strengthened, rather than weakened, by 
every trial to which it has been subjected. Such 
occasions turn the thoughts of the people to consider 
anew its vast importance. The more carefully they 
contemplate it, the more highly do they value it ; 
and as time rolls on, adding to its age, they regard 
it with increased veneration. More than all, it is 
sustained by a common religious faith, which of 
itself would be a powerful restraint against the 
commencement of a strife in which brother would 
be required to turn his hand against brother. Then 
also, the whole land is now feeling more and more 
the moral power of the railroad and the telegraph, 
which create throughout its most distant extremities 
the sympathies of close neighborhood. 

And here we think is found a great security 
against the alarm w 7 hich many have felt from the 
enlargement of the national territory. No one can 
suppose that we are less united because we have 



206 FIFTH LECTURE 

grown beyond " the old Thirteen," and embrace in 
our Union the States lying in the wide valley of the 
Mississippi and on the shores of our ocean-like 
Western Lakes. The result of this growth, which 
has added to the grandeur of the national edifice, 
has increased instead of impairing its strength and 
stability. Experience has thus far shown, that the 
federative bond was formed to comprehend a great 
nation ; that it has a power of expansion and adap- 
tation not fully understood in the early history of the 
country. Diversified as the various States may have 
become in climate, interests, and tastes, it leaves them 
" ample room and verge enough " for free and inde- 
pendent action on whatever immediately concerns 
themselves, while it unites and binds them under 
one government only so far as is required for the 
safety and welfare of the whole. Wise observ- 
ers of our past progress, contemplating it from 
abroad, have remarked, " The wider the dominion 
of the federation spreads, the greater the number 
of local interests and populations comprehended 
within its boundary, the less appears to be the proba- 
bility that any particular local interest can threaten 
the general weal — that dissensions between parti- 
cular sections are destined to endanger the security 
of the Union." A cause of disturbance that might 
lash into a foam the whole waters of a small lake, 



FIFTH LECTURE. 207 

would not be felt in the greater depths and wider 
extent of an ocean. 

And now, when of late the nation has spread 
itself over a region so wide as might once have 
rendered the people strangers to each other through 
the vast distance between them, and thus have 
prepared the way for their political severance ; we 
have, as a new gift from Heaven, sent just at the 
right season for our wants, these new and rapid 
means of communication which are destined to 
create a new era in unity of sentiment and interest 
between man and man, and which already are fast 
tesselating our continent from shore to shore, and 
binding its inhabitants together in a network of iron 
and steel. Wide then as our country may spread, 
even were " the whole continent ours," as to moral 
and political purposes distance is annihilated. The 
Atlantic and Pacific are now neighboring oceans. 
The Hudson and the Columbia are as near to each 
other as were the Hudson and the Delaware thirty 
years ago. 

We love to look at the workings of these new 
agencies, and to see how they harmonize without 
destroying that diversity of character among our 
citizens which arises from difference of climate and 
pursuit, and which we deem an essential element of 
our rising greatness. If a body is complete in sym- 



208 FIFTH LECTURE. 

metry and strength, all the members must not be 
cast in the same mould. As Paul says in another 
case, " The body is not one member, but many. If 
the whole body were the eye, where were the hear- 
ing? If the whole body were the hearing, where 
were the smelling ?" The principle is the same in 
all well-compacted bodies of men. An uniform 
sameness in the materials of national character 
renders it tame. The whole framework of the Com- 
monwealth is invigorated and stands out in bolder 
relief, when it brings into harmonious combination 
those great and discriminating features which now 
distinguish one section of her people from the others ; 
and were they obliterated, it would be her loss rather 
than her gain. Nor in all the collisions which may 
arise from a prevailing diversity of views, feelings, 
and condition, do we see any thing 'which, under 
the control of wise statesmen, cannot be merged in 
national sympathies and efficient co-operation for 
the general welfare.* 

We have dwelt the more fully on the danger to 
the Union, which is supposed by many to arise from 
the extension of the national boundaries, because it 
so occupies their minds as to divert their attention 
from what we consider as the great source of appre- 
hension. The delusion would be pregnant with 
*Note Q. 



FIFTH LECTURE. 209 

calamity to our country if she was either to believe 
that she is secure against all harm, or to overlook 
the danger which is most imminent and serious. 
This fair tree may be spreading its branches over 
the length and the breadth of the land, and yet there 
may be a worm at the root. Our great danger is 
from the spread of corruption among the people— 
among the people, I repeat — for if the people remain 
sound and true to themselves ; should rulers become 
faithless to their trust, they would be hurled from 
their places before their traitorous hand could touch 
the life-spring of the Commonwealth. Our govern- 
ment is too safely guarded by checks and balances 
to leave any scope for the ambitious designs of usur- 
pation. If the nation is ever destroyed it must be 
the work of self-destruction. If she falls it must be 
by her own hand. If she stands she must be true to 
herself, and to that allegiance to Heaven in which 
she was trained by her founders when they raised 
her to independence. Nothing but a high and per- 
vading sense of moral obligation, such as can spring 
only from an enlightened Christianity predominating 
among all ranks, and through all diversities of clime 
and character, can preserve from generation to ge- 
neration the blessings of such freedom as we enjoy. 
It is our deep conviction of this truth which has led 
us, in these Lectures, to present the leading principles 



210 FIFTH LECTURE. 

of free civil government in a light which may 
prove that the Bible, the Holy Bible, " known 
and read of all men," is the last but sure hope of 
America. 



THE END. 



NOTES. 



NOTE A.— Lecture 1. p. 26. 

The Journal of Congress shows how carefully the 
founders of our Republic cherished a deep sense of their 
dependance on God, and how highly they valued the Scrip* 
tures and the ordinances of Christianity as essential to the 
welfare of the nation. 

During the Revolution there was a painful scarcity of 
Bibles throughout the country. Few, if any, were imported, 
and booksellers had not the capital and other means for 
publishing an American edition. The subject was brought 
before Congress, and was referred to a Committee, who gave 
it their careful attention. On the 11th of September, 1777, 
they reported to the House : — 

" That they have conferred fully with the printers, &c. in this 
city, and are of opinion, that the proper types for printing the 
Bible are not to be had in this country, and that the paper cannot 
be procured, but with such difficulties, and subject to such casual- 
ties, as render any dependence on it altogether improper ; that to 
import types for the purpose of setting up an entire edition of the 
Bible, and to strike off 30,000 copies, with paper, binding, &c. 
will cost £10,272 10s., which must be advanced by Congress, 
to be reimbursed by the sale of the books ; that, in the opinion 
of the Committee, considerable difficulties will attend the procur- 
ing the types and paper ; that afterwards the risk of importing 
them will considerably enhance the cost, and that the calculations 
are subject to such uncertainty in the present state of affairs, that 
Congress cannot much rely on them ; that the use of the Bible is 
eo universal, and its importance so great, that your Committee 



212 NOTES. 

refer the above to the consideration of Congress, and if Congress 
shall not think it expedient to order the importation of types and 
paper, the Committee recommend that Congress will order the 
Committee of Commerce to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, 
Scotland, or elsewhere, into the different States of the Union." 

" Whereupon," adds the Journal, " it was moved, That the 
Committee of Commerce be directed to import 20,000 copies of 
the Bible ; and it was resolved in the affirmative." 

We may better understand the "great importance" which 
Congress attached to the Bible, if we recollect that when 
they passed this resolution appropriating funds for the pro- 
posed importation, they were greatly pressed by the want of 
money in the Treasury for the support of their troops then 
in the field. 

This Christian spirit is also very clearly exhibited in the 
frequency with which Congress appointed days of fasting, 
humiliation and prayer, and also seasonable days of thanks- 
giving during the whole period of the Revolutionary struggle. 
The language used in their various proclamations shows that 
they were not ashamed or afraid to speak plainly on the 
great truths of Christianity. When it was perceived in the 
early part of the year 1776, that war was inevitable, they 
issued the following recommendation : — 

" In times of impending calamity and distress, when the liber- 
ties of America are imminently endangered by the secret machi- 
nations and open assaults of an insidious and vindictive adminis- 
tration, it becomes the indispensable duty of these hitherto free 
and happy Colonies, with true penitence of heart, and the most 
reverent devotion, publicly to acknowledge the over-ruling provi- 
dence of God ; to confess and deplore our offences against him, 
and to supplicate his interposition for averting the threatened 
danger, and prospering our strenuous efforts in the cause of free- 
dom, virtue and posterity. 

" The Congress, therefore, considering the warlike preparations 
of the British Ministry to subvert our invaluable rights and pri- 



NOTES. 21S 

vileges, and to reduce us by fire and sword, by the savages of the 
wilderness and our own domestics, to the most abject and igno- 
minious bondage ; desirous, at the same time, to have people of 
all ranks and degrees duly impressed with a solemn sense of God's 
superintending providence, and of their duty duly to rely in all 
their lawful enterprises on his aid and direction, do earnestly re- 
commend that Friday, the 17th day of May next, be observed by 
the said Colonies as a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer, that 
we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins 
and transgressions, and by a sincere repentance and amendment of 
life, appease His righteous displeasure, and through the mediation 
of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon and forgiveness, humbly im- 
ploring his assistance to frustrate the cruel purposes of our 
unnatural enemies, and by inclining their hearts to justice and 
benevolence, prevent the further effusion of kindred blood. But 
if, continuing deaf to the voice of reason and humanity, and in- 
flexibly bent on desolation and war, they constrain us to repel 
their hostile invasion by open resistance, that it may please the 
Lord of Hosts, the Grod of Armies, to animate our officers and 
soldiers with invincible fortitude, to guard and protect them in the 
day of battle, and to crown the Continental Army, by sea and by 
land, with victory and success ; earnestly beseeching him to bless 
our civil rulers and representatives of the people in their several 
assemblies and conventions; to preserve and strengthen their 
union, to give wisdom and stability to their councils, and direct 
them to the most efficacious measures for establishing the rights 
of America on the most honorable and permanent basis ; that He 
would be graciously pleased to bless all his people in these Colo- 
nies with health and pleiuy, and grant that a spirit of incorruptible 
patriotism, and of pure, undefiled religion may universally prevail, 
and this Continent be speedily restored to the blessings of peace 
and liberty, and enabled to transmit them inviolate to the latest 
posterity. And it is recommended to Christians of all denomina- 
tions to assemble for public worship, and abstain from servile labor 
on the said day." 

We have not space to quote all the proclamations which 
were issued during the war, appointing days either of hu- 
miliation or thanksgiving. But we will make room for the 
two following ; the first of which was adopted in October, 



214 NOTES. 

1779, after several instances of success had attended the 
American army, and is as follows : — 

" Whereas it becomes us humbly to approach the Throne of 
Almighty God, with gratitude and praise for the wonders which 
His goodness has wrought in conducting our forefathers to this 
Western World ; for his protection to them and to their posterity 
amidst difficulties and dangers ; for raising us, their children, from 
deep distress to be numbered among the nations of the earth, and 
for arming the hands of just and mighty princes in our delive- 
rance ; and especially for that He hath been pleased to grant us 
the enjoyment of health, and so to order the revolving seasons 
that the earth hath produced her increase in abundance, blessing 
the labors of the husbandman and spreading plenty through the 
land ; that He hath prospered our arms and those of our ally ; 
been a shield to our troops in the hour of danger, pointed their 
swords to victory, and led them in triumph over the bulwarks of 
the foe ; that He hath gone with those who went out into the 
wilderness against the savage tribes; that He hath stayed the 
hand of the spoiler, and turned back his meditated destruction ; 
that He hath prospered our commerce, and given success to those 
w r ho fought the enemy on the face of the deep ; and, above all, 
that he hath diffused the glorious light of the Gospel, whereby, 
through the merits of our gracious Redeemer, we may become 
the heirs of his eternal glory : therefore, 

" Resolved. That it be recommended to the several States to 
appoint Thursday, the 9th of December next, to be a day of public 
and solemn thanksgiving to Almighty God for His mercies, and of 
prayer for the continuance of His favor and protection to these 
United States; to beseech Him that He would be graciously 
pleased to influence our public councils, and bless them with wis- 
dom from on high, with unanimity, firmness and success ; that He 
would go forth with our hosts and crown our armies with victory* 
that He would grant to his church the plentiful effusion of divine 
grace, and pour out his Holy Spirit on all ministers of the Gospel ; 
that He would bless and prosper the means of education, and 
spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest cor- 
ners of the earth ; that He would smile upon the labors of His 
people, and cause the earth to bring forth her fruits in abundance, 
that we may with gratitude and gladness enjoy them ; that He 



NOTES. 215 

would take under His holy protection our illustrious ally, give 
him victory over his enemies, and render him signally great as 
the father of his people and the protector of the rights of man- 
kind ; that He would be graciously pleased to turn the hearts of 
our enemies, and to dispense the blessings of peace to contending 
nations; that he would in mercy look down upon us, pardon our 
sins, and receive us into His favor, and finally, that he would es- 
tablish the independence of these United States upon the basis of 
religion and virtue, and support and protect them in the enjoy- 
ment of peace, liberty and safety." 

When intelligence was received that tie British Army 
had capitulated at Yorktown, it was immediately 

" Resolved, that Congress will at 2 o'clock this day go in pro- 
cession to the Dutch Lutheran Church, and return thanks to 
Almighty God for crowning the allied arms of the United States 
and France with success, by the surrender of the whole British 
Army under the command of the Earl Cornwallis." 

The same devout spirit had been manifested in the army 
itself. The day after the surrender, General Washington 
issued an order which closes in the following words : — 

" Divine service shall be performed to-morrow in the different 
brigades and divisions. The Commander-in-Chief recommends 
that all the troops that are not upon duty, do assist at it with a 
serious deportment, and that sensibility of heart which the recol- 
lection of the surprising and particular interposition of Providence 
in our favor claims." 

The auspicious event was commended as a subject of 
thankfulness to the whole nation in the following proclama- 
tion : — 

" Whereas, it hath pleased Almighty God, the Father of Mer- 
cies, remarkably to assist and support the United States of America 
in their important struggle for liberty, a jainst the long continued 
efforts of a powerful nation, it is the duty of all ranks to observe 
and thankfully to acknowledge the interposition of his providence 
in their behalf. Through the whole of the contest, from its first 



216 NOTES. 

rise to this time, the influence of Divine Providence may be 
clearly perceived in many signal instances, of which we mention 
but a few. 

" In revealing the councils of our enemies, when the discoveries 
were seasonable and important, and the means seemingly inade- 
quate or fortuitous ; in preserving and even improving the union 
of the several States, on the breach of which our enemies place 
their greatest dependence : in increasing the number and adding to 
the zeal and attachment of the friends of liberty ; in granting 
remarkable deliverances, and blessing us with the most signal 
success when affairs seemed to have the most discouraging appear- 
ance ; in raising up for us a powerful and generous ally in one of 
the first of the European powers ; in confounding the councils of 
our enemies, and suffering them to pursue such measures as have 
most directly contributed to frustrate their own desires and expec- 
tations ; above all, in making their extreme cruelty to the inhabi- 
tants of these States when in their power, and their savage 
devastation of property, the very means of cementing our union, 
and adding vigor to every effort in opposition to them. 

" And as we cannot help leading the good people of these 
States to a retrospect of the events which have taken place since 
the beginning of the war, so we recommend in a particular manner 
to their observation, the goodness of God in the year now drawing 
to a conclusion ; in which the confederation of the United States 
has been completed ; in which there has been so many instances 
of prowess and success in our armies, particularly in the Southern 
States, where, notwithstanding the difficulties with which they had 
to struggle, they have recovered the whole country which the 
enemy had overrun, leaving them only a post or two on or near 
the sea ; in which we have been so powerfully and effectually 
assisted by our allies, while in all the conjunct operations the 
most perfect harmony has subsisted in the allied army ; in which 
there has been so plentiful a harvest and so great abundance of 
the fruits of the earth of every kind, as not only enables us easily 
to supply the wants of our army, but gives comfort and happiness 
to the whole people ; and, in which, after the success of our allies 
by sea, a general of the first rank, with his whole army, has been 
captured by the allied forces under the direction of our Com- 
mander-in-Chief. 

"It is therefore recommended to the several States to set 



NOTES. 217 

apart the 13th day of December next, to be religiously observed 
as a day of thanksgiving and prayer ; that all the people may 
assemble on that day, with grateful hearts, to celebrate the praises 
of our Gracious Benefactor ; to confess our manifold sins ; to offer 
up our most fervent supplications to the God of all grace, that it 
may please Him to pardon our offences, and incline our hearts foi 
the future to keep all his laws ; to comfort and relieve all our 
brethren who are in distress or captivity ; to prosper our husband- 
men, and give success to all engaged in lawful commerce; to 
impart wisdom and integrity to our counsellors, judgment and 
fortitude to our officers and soldiers ; to protect and prosper our 
illustrious ally, and favor our united exertions for the speedy 
establishment of a safe, honorable and lasting peace ; to bless all 
seminaries of learning, and cause the knowledge of God to cover 
the earth, as the waters cover the seas." 

It is refreshing to the Christian patriot to find such sen- 
timents avowed so fully and cordially by the fathers of our 
Republic in their public acts and proceedings. They had no 
relish for that diluted and meagre Christianity which Is too 
nearly allied to a refined Paganism ; but they speak out the 
truths of the Bible, and in the language of the Bible, as 
men who believed in them and gloried in them. 



NOTE B.— Lecture 2. p. 59. 

1 refer to Alison. In the introduction to his History of 
Europe, having spoken of the overthrow of the Roman Em- 
pire, he proceeds to say : — 

" But the conquests of the Northern nations led to one im- 
portant consequence — the establishment of representative govern- 
ments in the provinces of the empire. The liberty of antiquity 
cradled in single cities, was confined to the citizens who were 
present on the spot, and could take an active part in the public- 
deliberations. Though the Romans, with unexampled wisdom, 

10 



218 NOTES. 

extended the rights of citizenship to the conquered provinces, yet 

the idea of admitting them to a share of the representation never 
occurred to their minds; and the more important privileges of a 
citizen could only be exercised by actually repairing to the metro- 
polis. The unavoidable consequence of this was, that the popu- 
lace of the capital, in all the free states of antiquity, exercised the 
principal powers of government ; from their passions the public 
measures took their rise, and by their tumults revolutions in the 
state were effected. Hence the violence, the anarchy, and the 
inconstancy by which their history was so often distinguished, and 
which, though concealed amid the blaze of ancient eloquence, the 
searching eye of modern history has so fully illustrated. 

"The northern nations on the other hand, who established 
themselves on the ruins of the Roman Empire, were actuated by 
different feelings and influenced by opposite habits. The liberty 
which they brought with them from their woods, or which had 
sprung up amidst the independence of the desert, knew no locality, 
and was confined to no district. The whole nation was originally 
free, and that freedom was equally preserved and valued in the cul- 
tivated plain as in the desert wilds. * * * It was the discovery 
of rich and cultivated districts, tenanted by a skilful but unwarlike 
people, which encouraged the rural settlement of the conquerors, 
which rendered the protection of cities unnecessary and provided 
a counterpoise to their allurements; and by establishing the inva- 
ders in a permanent manner in the country, long preserved their 
manners from corruption, and rendered the servitude of the Roman 
Empire one remote cause of the liberty of modern Europe. 

" On the first settlement of the victorious nations, the popular 
assemblies of the soldiers were an actual convocation of the 
military array of the kingdoms. William the Conqueror sum- 
moned his whole military followers to assemble at Winchester, 
and sixty thousand men obeyed the mandate, the poorest of whom 
held property adequate to the maintenance of a horseman and his 
attendants. The meetings of the Champs-de-Mai were less a 
deputation from the followers of Clovis, than an actual congrega- 
tion of their numbers in one vast assembly. But, in process of 
time, the burden of travelling from a distance was severely felt, 
and the prevalence of sedentary habits rendered the landed pro- 
prietors unwilling to undertake the risk or expense of personal 
attendance on the great council of the state. Hence the introduc- 



NOTES. 219 

tion of Parliaments or Representative Legislatures, ihe greatest 
addition to the cause of liberty which modern times has afforded; 
which combine the energy of a democratic with the caution of an 
aristocratic government; winch temper the turbulence and allay 
the fervor of cities by the slowness and tenacity of country life, 
and which, when the balance is duly preserved in the composition 
of the assembly, provide in the variety of its interests and habits, 
a permanent check upon the violence or injustice of a part of its 
members. 

" It is doubtful, however, whether these causes, powerful as 
they are, would have led to the introduction of that great and 
hitherto unknown change in government which the representative 
system introduced, had not a model existed for imitation, in which 
for a series of ages, it had been fully established. The councils 
of the church had so early as the sixth century introduced over all 
Christendom the most perfect system of representation. Delegates 
from the most remote dioceses in Europe and Asia had there assem- 
bled to deliberate on the concerns of the faithful, and every Chris- 
tian priest, in the humblest station, had some share in the forma- 
tion of those great assemblies, by whom the general affairs of the 
church were to be regulated. The formation of parliaments, 
under the representative system, took place in all the European 
States in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The industry of 
antiquarians may carry the Wittenagemot or actual Assembly of 
leading men a few generations further back ; but six centuries be- 
fore, the Councils of Nice and Antioeh had exhibited perfect 
models of an universal system of representation, embracing a wider 
sphere than the whole extent of the Roman Empire. There can 
be no doubt that it was this example, so generally known, and of 
such powerful authority, which determined the imitation of the 
other members of the community, where they had any common 
concerns which required deliberation, and thus to the other bless- 
ings which civilization owes to Christianity are to be added those 
inestimable advantages which have flowed from the establishment 
of the representative system." 

Brougham, in his valuable work entitled " Political 
Philosophy," claims " the representative principle as the 
great invention of modem times;'' but admits that the 
" Commonwealths of antiquity made so near an approach to, 



220 NOTES. 

it, as leaves us m some wonder how they never should have 
made that important step in the art of government.' , He 
refers to the Republics of Greece and others, in which the 
choice of rulers was often submitted to the blind hazard of 
the lot, and not to the intelligent and deliberate action of 
the people. Had he turned to the Commonwealth of the 
Hebrews, he might have there found everything that he 
has defined as essential to Representation. It is not a little 
strange that such men as Alison, Brougham and others, in 
their extensive researches on such subjects, should so en- 
tirely overlook what is contained in the Bible respecting the 
great principles which enter into the constitution of civil 
government. 



NOTE C— Lecture 2, p. 59 

From the various Commentaries which show how the 
passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy are to be reconciled, 
I will quote the Exposition by Graves, cited in the Compre- 
hensive Commentary. He observes, on the narrative in Deu- 
teronomy : — 

" There is a great and striking difference betwixt this state- 
ment and that of Exodus, 18 : 17-22, hut no contradiction. 
Jethro suggested to Moses the appointment. He, probably 
after consulting God, as Jethro intimates — 'If God shall com- 
mand thee so,' Exodus, 18 : 23, referred the matter to the people, 
and assigned the choice of the individuals to them ; the persons 
thus selected he admitted to share his authority, as subordinate 
judges. Thus the two statements are perfectly consistent. But 
this is not all : their difference is most natural. In first recording 
the event, it was natural for Moses to dwell on the first cause 
which led to it, and pass by the appeal to the people as a subor- 



NOTES. 221 

dinate and less material part of the transaction ; but in addressing 
the people, it was natural to notice the part they themselves had 
in the selection of those judges, in order to conciliate their regard 
and obedience. How naturally, also, does this pious legislator, in 
his public address, dwell on every circumstance which could 
improve his hearers in piety and virtue ! The multitude of the 
people was the cause of the appointment of the Judges. How 
beautifully is this increase of the nation turned to an argument 
of gratitude to God ! How admirably does he take occasion, from 
mentioning the Judges, to inculcate the eternal principles of justice 
and piety which should control their decisions ! How remote is 
all this from art, forgery, imposture ! Surely here, if anywhere, 
we can trace the dictates of nature, truth, and piety." 



NOTE D.— Lecture 2, p. 64. 

" From various passages of the Pentateuch, we find that 
Moses, at making known any laws, had to convene the whole 
congregation of Israel ftilp or m3>) > and, in like manner, in the 
Book of Joshua, we see, that when Diets were held, the whole 
congregation were assembled. If on such occasions every indivi- 
dual had to give his vote, everything would certainly have been 
democratic in the highest degree ; but it is scarcely conceivable 
how, without any particular regulations made for the purpose, 
(which, however, we nowhere find,) order could have been pre- 
served in an assembly of 600,000 men, their votes accurately 
numbered, and acts of violence prevented. If, however, we con- 
sider that, while Moses is said to have spoken to the whole con- 
gregation, he could not possibly be heard by 600,000 people, (for 
what human voice could be sufficiently strong to be so ?) all our 
fears and difficulties will vanish ; for this circumstance alone must 
convince any one that Moses could only have addressed himself 
to a certain number of persons deputed to represent the rest of 
the Israelites. Accordingly, in Numbers, 1 : 16, we find mention 
made of such persons. In contradiction to the common Israelites, 
they are there denominated Kertie Haeda (m3>n "Wip)? that is, 
those wont to be called to the convention. In the 16th chapter 
of the same book, verse 2, they are styled Nesie Eda Kertie Moed 



222 NOTES. 

(n^fr "WlJJ rt12P WtB2>) that is, chiefs of the community, that 
are called to the convention. I notice this passage particularly, 
because it appears from it that 250 persons of this description, 
who rose up against Moses, became to him objects of extreme 
terror; which they could not have been, if their voices had not 
been, at the same time, the voices of their families and tribes. 
Still more explicit, and to this point, is the passage Deut. 29 : 10, 
where Moses, in a speech to the whole people, says, < Ye stand 
this day, all of you, before the Lord your God ; your captains of 
your tribes, (that is, chiefs of tribes,) your elders and your officers, 
with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy 
stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the 
drawer of thy water.' Now, as Moses could not possibly speak 
loud enough to be heard by two millions and a half of people, (for 
to so many did the Israelites amount, women and children in- 
cluded,) it must be manifest that the first-named persons repre- 
sented the people, to whom they again repeated the words of 
Moses. 

" Whether these representatives were on every occasion obliged 
to collect and declare the sense of their constituents, or whether, 
like the members of the English House of Commons, they acted 
in the plenitude of their own power for the general good, without 
taking instructions from their constituents, I find nowhere expressly 
determined ; but methinks, from a perusal of the Bible, I can 
scarcely doubt that the latter was the case." 

We presume few can have any doubt in the matter ; and, 
as Jahn remarks in bis Archaeology, we do not find the peo- 
ple discovering any inclination to interfere in the deliberations 
of their representatives by dictating the course to be pur- 
sued. But, as be adds, important measures were often laid 
before the people for their consent or ratification ; and this 
was done whenever the rulers or representatives thought it 
expedient to have the views of the whole nation so ex- 
pressed. 



NOTES. 223 



NOTE E.— Lecture 2, p. 65. 

The account which I have given respecting the organiza- 
tion of the Courts of Justice, and the Confederation of the 
Tribes, is fully sustained by proofs which are stated with 
much detail by Michaelis in his Commentaries, and by Jahn in 
his Archceology. But while I refer to these authors as 
valuable expositors on these subjects, I cannot but differ 
from them with regard to the Council of Seventy, or the 
Sanhedrim, as it is often called. Jahii's views are very 
much taken from Michaelis', and I will quote only the words 
of the latter ; — 

"Moses established in the Wilderness another institution, 
which has been commonly held to be of a judicial nature ; and, 
under the name of Sanhedrim or Synedrium, much spoken of both 
by Jews and Christians, although it probably was not of long 
continuance. We have the account of its establishment in Num- 
bers, 1 1 ; and if we read the passage impartially and without pre- 
judice, we shall probably entertain an opinion of the Synedrium 
different from that generally received, which exalt it into a 
supreme College of Justice that was to endure for ever. 

" A rebellion that arose among the Israelites distressed Moses 
exceedingly. In order to allevia'te the weight of the burden that 
oppressed him, he chose, from the twelve tribes collectively, a 
council of seventy persons, to assist him. These, however, could 
hardly have been judges; for, of them the people already had 
between sixty and seventy thousand. Besides, of what use could 
seventy new judges, or a Supreme Court of Appeal, have been in 
crushing a rebellion. It seems much more likely that this selection 
was intended for a Supreme Senate, to take a share with Moses in 
the Government : and as it consisted of persons of respectability, 
either in point of family or merit, it would serve materially to 
support his power and influence among the people in general. By 
a mixture of aristocracy, it would moderate the monarchical 
appearance which the constitution must have assumed, from Moses 
giving his laws by command of God : and it would unite a numbei 



224 NOTES. 

of powerful families together, from their being all associated with 
Moses in the Government. 

"It is commonly supposed that this Synedrium continued per- 
manent; but this I doubt. For, in the whole period from the 
death of Moses to the Babylonish captivity, we find not the least 
mention of it in the Bible ; and this silence, methinks, is decisive • 
for in the time of the judges, but particularly on those occasions 
when, according to the expression of the Book of Judges, ' There 
was neither king nor judge in Israel;' and again, during those 
great political revolutions, w T hen David by degree became king 
over all the tribes, and when the ten tribes revolted from his 
grandson Rehoboam ; and .lastly, under the tyrannical reigns of 
some of the subsequent kings — such a supreme council of seventy 
persons, if it had been in existence, must have made a conspicuous 
figure in the history ; and yet we find not the least trace of it ; so 
that it merely appears to have been a temporary council, instituted 
by Moses for his personal service and security ; and as he did not 
fill up the vacancies occasioned in it by deaths, it must have died 
out altogether in the Wilderness. 

" No doubt the Jews, after their return from the Babylonish 
captivity, did institute a Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, of which fre- 
quent mention is made, not only in the New Testament, but also 
in Jewish writings. But this is merely an imitation of the ancient 
Mosaic Synedrium, with the nature of whose constitution the lat- 
ter Jews were no longer acquainted ; for they had indeed become 
ignorant of almost all the customs of their ancestors. The detail 
of this second Sanhedrim established by the latter Jews, belong not 
to our present work, but to their history after the Babylonish 
captivity." 

In reference to the " ignorance of all the customs of 
their ancestors/' which is here charged upon the Jews after 
the Captivity in Babylon, I remark that we should be very 
slow to believe such a charge against Ezra, Nehemiah, and 
others, under whose direction the restoration of the Jews 
and of their ordinances is described to us as having taken 
place. Such men well understood the " nature of the con- 
stitution of the Mosaic Synedrium," when, as Michaelis admits, 
they introduced what they considered " an imitation of it." 



NOTES. 225 

As to his main argument, to show that the Council of 
Seventy was a mere temporary arrangement — viz. that we 
find no mention of it from the time of Moses until the 
Babylonish Captivity ; I do not admit the fact to be so ; and 
even if it was so, I would not admit the inference which h* 
draws from the supposed silence. We do not infer thai 
circumcision was discontinued among the Hebrews for cen« 
turies after the days of Joshua because there is no express 
mention of its observance; nor that a Sabbath was not 
observed among the Patriarchs because the Scriptures are 
silent respecting it. 

The Council, or Senate of Seventy, seems to be men- 
tioned on just such occasions after the death of Moses &s 
most fitly calls for it. It is of small consequence whe- 
ther we may or may not find the name, if we find the 
thing. Our first inquiry, then, should be : What was this 
Council of Seventy ? what were its rank, its authority, and 
duties ? These, we may learn from the circumstances undef 
which it was formed, and the occasion which gave rise to it, 
as we find them, Numbers, 11. 

It has been observed (I believe by M'Intosh) that " insti- 
tutions grow, and are not made." This is generally true ; and 
the institution of the Seventy Elders seems to have grown 
out of the accumulation of business which arose from the 
increasing number and interests of the Hebrews on their way 
to Canaan. 

An open rebellion had broken out among the people, in 
which they expressly avowed their desire to return to Egypt, 
and put designed contempt on the mercies which God had 
shown to them. The occurrence afflicted and displeased 
Moses exceedingly, and led him to ask for death rather than 
the continuance of a life which was harassed and burdened 



226 NOTES. 

by the care of so wayward and ungrateful a people. He felt 
that notwithstanding the relief which he had gained from 
the appointment of rulers to aid him, as described, Deutero- 
nomy, 1 : 9-18, yet there was an oppressive amount of care 
and responsibility still resting upon him. " Small matters " 
were decided by them ; but every "great matter," every 
" hard cause," the people were still allowed to bring to him; 
and such were the constantly multiplying concerns of the 
people, that, as he here says, it had become too heavy for 
him to act "alone" as the highest authority for the judg- 
ment of "hard causes" or "great matters." He needed 
men for his aid to whom should be given "the Spirit" 
which had been given to him, a Spirit qualifying them to 
judge in matters which he alone had heretofore held under 
his jurisdiction. Accordingly he was told that the needful 
relief should be given : " The Lord said unto Moses, Gather 
unto you seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou 
knowest to be the elders of the people and officers over 
them, and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congrega- 
tion, that they may stand there with thee. And I will 
come down and talk with thee there ; and I will take of the 
Spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them, and 
they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that 
thou bear it not thyself alone." Now, observe how these 
seventy are to be selected for this high office. 

1 . They were to be taken out of the Elders or Senators 
of Israel — must be men who had held the office and knew 
its duties. Elders or Senators, I say ; for, as all scholars 
know, these terms are of similar import. Both of them 
originally refer to qualifications of age, but in time became 
terms of office, properly of such offices as could be best 
filled by men who had reached maturity of years. 



NOTES. 227 

2. They must have acquired acknowledged charactei 
and distinction among the elders — " Whom thou knowest 
to be elders." And then, besides this, 

3. They must also have reputation as officers fc-^toti 
over the people. This is a title generally denoting preemi- 
nence or superior influence and authority, for whatever pur- 
pose the office was held. It is applied, for instance, to the 
commander-in-chief of an army. 

4. They are described also, verse 26, as " those that 
were written ;" implying that their names had been enrolled 
on a distinctive record, perhaps in this way to be submitted 
to some constituency for an election. 

o. The number, seventy, of which the council was com- 
posed, is worthy of note. " Seven " and " seventy " are of- 
ten called the sacred numbers, or numbers of perfection, in 
Scripture language ; and with reference to this general idea, 
the Sanhedrim was made to consist of seventy, the more 
fully to denote its high rank. 

Such. were the origin, rank, and character of the Sanhe- 
drim or Senate of Seventy, created by Divine appointment 
in the Hebrew Commonwealth. It seems, in some respects, 
to have been like an Upper House, as the Senate in our own 
Government; or, in other respects, like a High Court of 
Appeal, whose decisions and ordinances were final, and 
whose character for wisdom and integrity would give weight 
to their proceedings and their acts. So far from such a 
Senate being of no use in crushing a rebellion, as Michaelis 
intimates, its -influence must have been most effective, not 
only in quelling rebellions that might arise, but in preventing 
those which might be threatened. Especially was it of use 
for this purpose at the time of its creation, when God gave 
his sanctions to its decisions by such a marked bestowment 



228 NOTES. 

of His Spirit on its members as made itself obvious to all 
the people. Whether assembled at " the tabernacle of the 
congregation," or whether "remaining at the camp," we are 
told, " they prophesied and did not cease," 

As to future mention of this distinguished or higher 
body of elders or senators, it may be found on several occa- 
sions in the history of the nation. In Joshua, 9 : 13-21, 
when the treaty was made with the Gibeonites, which created 
much murmuring among the people, we find a body of men 
acting with Joshua as his council, who were called " Princes " 
or "Principal men of the Congregation," whose rank or 
authority evidently corresponded with that of the Senate or 
Council of Seventy, as described on the occasion of their 
original appointment. It is the same body of men who 
seem to have been referred to, Judges, 21 : 16, under the 
title, " Elders of the Congregation," who gave their judg- 
ment on the great national question of preventing " a tribe 
from being destroyed out of Israel." It is not unlikely that 
this Senate was at times of defection from God, both " in 
the days of the Judges" and during the times of the Kings, 
allowed to fall into neglect. And if we look carefully at the 
reforms accomplished by Jehoshaphat, as described, Second 
Chronicles, 29 : 8-11, we may learn that one of his chief 
measures was the restoration of this very Council to its 
rightful place and authority. That Ezra acted with it and 
through it in his administration, seems to be admitted on all 
hands. It is to these Judges or Senators he is supposed to 
refer, Ezra, 10:8. 



NOTES. 229 



NOTE F.— Lecture 2, p. 70. 



A cursory perusal of the Book of Judges may have led 
some readers to a different conclusion, respecting the condi- 
tion of the nation, while "the Judges ruled over Israel," 
from what I have described. The references, however, to 
this period of history which I have quoted from subsequent 
parts of the Bible, are decisive on the point. It should be 
remembered that this Book, short as it is, spreads over a 
period of about three hundred years ; and, as a venerable 
commentator remarks, in a history so succinct, historians 
generally select the startling events of wickedness and vio- 
lence, while they pass by in silence the more unobtrusive 
occurrences, which are the fruits of piety towards God and 
righteousness towards man. " And the land had rest four- 
score years," is the brief language in which is described a 
period of unbroken peace and prosperity which lasted for 
nearly three generations, as we would term it. Besides, the 
crimes that stain these brief pages are exceeded by those 
which were committed after " the time of the Judges." 
Amidst the worst extremities of guilt and suffering to which 
reference is here made, there is nothing so atrocious and 
revolting as parents devouring their own children, or offering 
them in sacrifice to Moloch, which are recorded as sins 
committed during the reign of the Kings. It is true that 
during the reign of Solomon the nation acquired wealth, 
refinement, and distinction, never known till that day. But 
this arose chiefly from the unparalleled wisdom of the man 
who then wore the crown ; and the disasters which followed 
Solomon's death soon showed how very unstable are the 
power and prosperity of a nation if it rests on t^e wisdor* 



230 NOTES. 

and virtue of any one man, rather than on the intelligence 
and integrity of the people themselves. 

But whatever else may be left in uncertainty as to the 
comparative welfare of the people, under the two respective 
governments, one thing is certain — the union of the nation 
was preserved during the four hundred, or rather four hun- 
dred and fifty (see Acts, 13 : 20) years of the Republic; 
whereas, but one hundred and twenty years had passed under 
the government of the Kings, till the nation was rent in 
twain by a breach that never was healed, and which led to 
bloody and disastrous wars. It is also to be observed, that 
the greatest evils which transpired during the Common- 
wealth are described as springing from the want of a supreme 
Government over the entire nation. In connection with the 
disorders that resulted in the fatal war with the tribe of 
Benjamin, it is said : " In those days there was no King in 
Israel ; every man did that which was right in his own eyes." 
Commentators, very much with one consent, interpret these 
words, not as referring to the want of a monarch with royal 
power and prerogatives, but to the want of that supreme 
authority over the whole people, which God had taught thern 
how to provide and to perpetuate ; which, after the days 
of Moses, is described as vested in Joshua and the Elders or 
Senators who were his contemporaries, and during whose 
administration Israel obeyed the Lord and " dwelt safely." 
That such is a just interpretation of the word "King," may 
be seen by referring to several passages, as Deut. 33 : 5, 
where Moses is said to have been " king in Jeshurun." 



NOTES. 2S1 



NOTE G. Lecture 2, p. 74. 



This irrational and unscriptural doctrine, usually termed 
" the Divine right," may be said to have been first openly 
avowed under the sanction of James I, who had a strange 
faculty of giving the most offensive form to the most extra- 
vagant opinions, and who valued himself highly on his skill 
in kingcraft. It was not long before the University of Ox- 
ford threw all her weight in his favor ; and to what length 
she carried her doctrines, may be seen from the following 
incident, to which others of a like character might be 
added by any one who is familiar with the events of 
that day. 

"In 1662 the Rev. Mr. Knight, of Pembroke College, Oxford, 
delivered a sermon before the University, in which he contended 
that subordinate magistrates might lawfully use force against the 
chief magistrate in the following cases: 1. When the chief magis- 
trate becomes a tyrant; 2. When he forces his subjects to blas- 
phemy or idolatry; 3. Vv^hen intolerable burdens or pressures are 
laid upon them ; 4. When resistance is the only expedient to 
secure their lives, then- fortunes, and the liberty of their consciences. 

" Such heresy was not to be allowed. The preacher was sent 
for to court, and was required to give his authority for the doctrine 
above stated. He referred to the Commentary of Parseus on the 
thirteenth chapter of Romans, but relied upon King James him- 
self as his chief authority, as the King was then assisting the op- 
pressed inhabitants of Rochelle in opposing their Prince. 

" The result of this reply was two- fold. The preacher was 
committed to prison, and Parseus' book was ordered to be burned 
at Oxford, Cambridge and London. 

" The authorities of the University of Oxford then assembled, 
and condemned the preacher's assertions, and passed the following 
decree : ' That it is not lawful to resist the Sovereign, by force of 
arms, either offensively or defensively, upon any pretence whatever; 
that all doctors, masters of arts, &c, within the University, shall 
subscribe to these decrees and censures; and that whosoever takes 



232 NOTES. 

any degree, shall take his oath, that he doth from his heart not 
only condemn the said doctrine of Paraeus, but that he will neither 
preach, teach, nor maintain the same, or any of them, at any time 

in future.' " 

Not long afterwards, a similar conflagration took place 
at Oxford. In the reign of Charles, and on the very day, 
as w r e are told, on which Russell was put to death, the Uni- 
versity, by a public act, adopted in their fullest extent the 
doctrines of Filmer, and ordered the political works of 
Buchanan, Milton and Baxter to be burnt in the courts of 
the schools. 

Mr. Knight is far from being the only English clergyman 
who has resisted and exposed these Oxford tenets. Dr. 
Paley has remarked, in his own terse style, that the Divine 
right of kings is like the Divine right of constables ; neither 
of them having any right to authority, except so far as they 
are useful in maintaining government and good order. It is 
said, however, that the boldness and strength of Paley 's 
reasoning on Civil Government, so far from being honored, 
was never forgiven by the dominant party of his day. 



NOTE H.— Lecture 2, p. 75. 

As this is a question which has been debated with much 
earnestness, and is now viewed with fresh interest, as it has 
a close application to the events of our day, I here quote the 
views of two very distinguished men, who contemplated the 
subject from different points of observation. The first is well 
known as a divine and a casuist, the other as a statesman 
and an historian. 

President D wight in his "Theology," having described the 
duty of subjects to their rulers, proceeds to s? tt * 



NOTES, 233 

" The observations already made concerning this general 
subject, will prepare the way for settling our opinions concerning 
a particular question involved in it, which is of high importance to 
mankind. It is this: Whether a nation is warranted to resist 
rulers, when seriously encroaching on its liberties ? It is my 
intention to confine the answer, which will now be given to this 
question, to the lawfulness of such resistance. The expediency of it 
I shall suppose to be granted, so far as the safety and buccess of 
the resistance is concerned. In other words, I shall suppose the 
people immediately interested in the question, to have as fair an 
opportunity as can be reasonably expected of preserving or 
acquiring political liberty, and of establishing, after the contest is 
ended, a free and happy government. In this case, the resistance 
in question is, in my own view, warranted by the Law of God. It 
is w T ell known that this opinion has been adopted by some wise 
and good men, and denied by others. But the reasons alleged by 
both classes for their respective doctrines have, so far as they havfe 
fallen under my observation, been less satisfactory than I wished. 

" A nation already free ought, whenever encroachments upon 
its freedom are begun, to reason in some such manner as the 
following : 

" Despotism, according to the universal and uniform experience 
of man, has regularly been fatal to every human interest. It has 
attacked private happiness, and invaded public prosperity. It has 
multiplied sufferings without number and beyond degree. It has 
visited, regularly, the nation, the neighborhood, and the fireside, 
and carried with it public sorrow and private anguish. Personal 
liberty has withered at its touch ; and national safety, peace, and 
prosperity have faded at its approach. Enjoyment has fled before 
it, life expired, and hope vanished. Evils of this magnitude have 
all been suffered, also, merely to gratify the caprice, the pride, the 
ambition, the avarice, the resentment, or the voluptuousness of 
one, or a few individuals ; each of wmose interests is of the same 
value in the sight of God, and no more than those of every other 
individual belonging to the nation. Can there be a reason — do 
the Scriptures furnish one? — why the millions of the present 
generation, and the numerous millions of succeeding generations, 
should suffer these evils merely to gratify the lusts of ten, twenty, 
or one hundred of their fellow men ? 

" If an affirmative answer should be given to this question, let it 



2o4 NOTES. 

be remembered that the same despotic power has, with equal regu- 
larity, cut off from subjects the means of usefulness and duty. Man- 
kind are sent into the world to serve God and do good to each 
other. If these things are not done, we live in vain, and worse 
than in vain. If the means of doing them are taken away, we are 
prevented, just so far, from answering the end of our creation. In 
vain is mental and bodily energy, in vain are talents, opportunities, 
and privileges bestowed by our Creator, if they are to be wrested 
from us by our fellow men, or the means of creating them taken 
away. In vain are we constituted parents, if we are precluded 
from procuring the comfortable sustenance, providing for the edu- 
cation, and promoting the piety and salvation of our offspring. In 
vain are we made children, if we are forbidden to perform the 
filial duties. In vain are we placed in other relations of life, if we 
are prohibited from performing the duties to which they give 
birth. Take away usefulness from man, and there is nothing left 
which is good, but everything which is bad. This good, however, 
despots have in a dreadful manner either prevented or destroyed. 
They have shrunk the talents, and palsied the energy of the mind 
— have shut the door of knowledge and blocked up the path of 
virtue — have wilted the human race into sloth and imbecility, and 
lowered the powers of man almost to the level of brutism. The 
little spot of Greece exhibited more energy and more specimens of 
mental greatness, in one hundred and fifty years, than the Chinesian 
World has exhibited in two thousand. 

" But this is not all. Despotic Rulers have exercised a most 
malignant influence upon the virtue of mankind. They have 
assumed the prerogative of Heaven, and prescribed, as the will of 
God, a system of religious doctrines and duties to their subjects. 
This system has invariably been absurd, gross, and monstrous. 
The morality which it enjoins has been chiefly a code of crimes, 
fitter for the regulation of banditti than of sober men. The reli- 
gion which it has taught has been a scheme of impiety. Yet this 
system they have enforced by the most terrible penalties — by the 
loss of property, liberty, and life — by the jail and the gibbet, the 
wheel and the rack, the faggot and the cross. Blood has stained 
the sceptre ; martyrs have surrounded the throne. 

6 'Even this is not all. Despots, bad men themselves, must be 
served by bad men. The baleful and deleterious influence of the 
head and members united, has extended everywhere, even to tho 



NOTES. 235 

corner and the cottage, and, like the deadly damp of the cavern, 
has imperceptibly and silently extinguished light and life wherever 
it has spread. Virtue has fallen amid the exhalation, unobserved 
and unknown. In its place has arisen and flourished a train of 
monstrous corruptions, which, with continually increasing strength, 
have finally gained entire possession of the land. Degenerated 
beyond recall, and polluted beyond hope, a people under this 
influence has sunk into remediless ruin, and only continued to 
exist until Mercy was wearied out by their profligacy, and reluc- 
tantly gave the sign for Vengeance to sweep them away. One 
regular and complete example of all these evils is given us by the 
voice of God himself in the kingdom of Israel. Profane history 
records a multitude. Is there any principle, either scriptural or 
natural, which demands of any nation such a sacrifice ? 

" But were we to admit that such a sacrifice might lawfully be 
made, so far as ourselves only are concerned, it is further to be 
remembered, that we are entrusted with all the possessions, privi- 
leges, blessings, and hopes of our offspring, through every succeeding 
generation. Guardians appointed by God himself, how can we 
fail of discharging punctiliously this sacred trust ? The deposit is 
of value, literally immense. It involves the education, the comfort, 
the safety, the usefulness, the religious system, the morals, the 
piety, and the eternal life of millions, which can neither be known 
nor calculated. This is a trust which cannot lawfully be given 
up, unless in obedience to a known and unequivocal command of 
God ; and no such command can be pleaded. Equally important 
is it that we prevent (for, under God, none but we can prevent) 
the contrary innumerable and immeasurable evils. 

" At the same time, it is ever to be remembered that, under a 
free government, all the blessings which I have mentioned, so far 
as they are found in the present world, live and prosper, Such a 
government is the soil and the climate, the rain and the sunshine, 
of human good. Despotism, on the contrary, is the combined 
drought and sterility of Nubia, the frost and darkness of Zembla, 
amid which virtue, comfort, and safety can never spring. 

" With these considerations in view, it is unquestionably evi- 
dent to me that nations are bound, so far as it is possible, to main- 
tain their freedom, and to resist every serious encroachment upon 
it, with such efforts as are necessary for its preservation." 

Macaulay, in his recent " History of England,'' describes 



23b NOTES. 

the change which took place on this subject in the minds of 
many, when they saw how James II was overturning the 
civil and religious liberties of the realm : — 

" The greatest Anglican doctors of that age had maintained 
that no breach of law or contract, no excess of cruelty, rapacity, 
or licentiousness, on the part of a rightful king, could justify his 
people in withstanding him by force. Some of them had delighted 
to exhibit the doctrine of non-resistance in a form so exaggerated 
as to shock common sense and humanity. They frequently and 
emphatically remarked, that Nero was at the head of the Roman 
Government when St. Paul inculcated the duty of obeying magis- 
trates. The inference which they drew was, that if an English 
king should, without any law but his own pleasure, persecute his 
subjects for not worshipping idols — should fling them to the lions 
in the Tower — should wrap them up in pitched cloth, and set them 
on fire to light up St. James's Park — and should go on with these 
massacres till whole towns and shires were left without one inha- 
bitant, the survivors would still be bound meekly to submit, and 
to be torn in pieces or roasted alive without a struggle. The 
arguments in favor of this proposition were futile indeed : but the 
place of sound argument was amply supplied by the omnipotent 
sophistry of interest and of passion." 

Having remarked that " the system of Filmer might have 
survived the attacks of Locke, but never recovered the 
deadly blows given by James," he goes on to show how the 
truth now presented itself to those who formerly shut their 
eyes against it : — 

" The ethical parts of Scripture were not to be construed like 
Acts of Parliament, or like the casuistical treatises of the school- 
men. What Christian really turned the left cheek to the ruffian 
who had smitten the right 1 What Christian really gave hi3 cloak 
to the thieves who had taken his coat away? Both in the Old and 
the New Testaments, general rules were perpetually laid down 
unaccompanied by the exceptions. Thus there was a general com- 
mand not to kill, unaccompanied by any reservation in favor of 
the warrior who kills in defence of his king and country. There 
was a general command not to swear, unaccompanied by any 



NOTES. 237 

reservation in favor of the witness who swears to speak the truth 
before a judge. Yet the lawfulness of defensive war, and of judi- 
cial oaths, was disputed only by a few obscure sectaries, and was 
-positively affirmed in the articles of the Church of England. All 
the arguments which showed that the Quaker, who refused to 
bear arms or to kiss the Gospels, was unreasonable and perverse, 
might be turned against those who denied to subjects the right 
of resisting tyranny by force. If it was contended that the texts 
which prohibited homicide, and the texts which prohibited swear- 
ing, though generally expressed, must be construed in subordina- 
tion to the great commandment by which every man is enjoined to 
promote the welfare of his neighbors, and would, when so con- 
strued, be found not to apply to cases in which homicide or swear- 
ing might be absolutely necessary to protect the dearest interests 
of society, it was not easy to deny that the texts which prohibited 
resistance ought to be construed in the same manner. If the an- 
cient people of God had been directed sometimes to destroy human 
life, and sometimes to bind themselves by oaths, they had also 
been directed sometimes to resist wicked princes. If early Fathers 
of the Church had occasionally used language which seemed to 
imply that they disapproved of all resistance, they had also occa- 
sionally used language which seemed to imply that they disapproved 
of all war and of all oaths. In truth, the doctrine of passive obe- 
dience, as taught at Oxford in the reign of Charles II, can be de- 
duced from the Bible only by a mode of interpretation which would 
irresistibly lead us to the conclusions of Barclay and of Penn. 

"It was not merely by arguments drawn from the letter of 
Scripture, that the Anglican theologians had, during the years 
which immediately followed the Restoration, labored to prove 
their favorite tenet. They had attempted to show that, even if 
Revelation had been silent, reason would have taught wise men 
the folly and wickedness of all resistance to established govern- 
ment. It was universally admitted that such resistance was, except 
in extreme cases, unjustifiable. And who would undertake to draw 
the line between extreme cases and ordinary cases % Was there 
any government in the world under which there were not to be 
found some discontented and factious men who would say, and 
perhaps think, that their grievances constituted an extreme case? 
If, indeed, it were possible to lay down a clear and accurate rule, 
which might forbid men to rebel against Trajan, and yet leave them 



238 NOTES. 

at liberty to rebel against Caligula, such a rule might be highly 
beneficial. But no sudn rule had ever been, or ever would be, 
framed. To say that rebellion was lawful under some circum- 
stances, without accurately defining those circumstances, was to 
say that every man might rebel whenever he thought fit; and a 
society in which every man rebelled whenever he thought fit, 
would be more miserable than a society governed by the most 
cruel and licentious despot. It was therefore necessary to 
maintain the great principle of non-resistance in all its integrity. 
Particular cases might doubtless be put in which resistance would 
benefit a community; but it was, on the whole, better that the 
people should patiently endure a bad government, than that they 
should relieve themselves by violating a law on which the security 
of all government depended. 

" Such reasoning easily convinced a dominant and prosperous 
party, but could ill bear the scrutiny of minds strongly excited by 
royal injustice and ingratitude. It is true that, to trace the exact 
boundary between rightful and wrongful resistance, is impossible; 
but this impossibility arises from the nature of right and wrong, 
and is found in almost every part of ethical science. A good action 
is not distinguished from a bad action by marks so plain as those 
which distinguish a hexagon from a square. There is a frontier 
where virtue and vice fade into each other. Who has ever been 
able to define the exact boundary between courage and rashness, 
between prudence and cowardice, between frugality and avarice, 
between liberality and prodigality ? Who has ever been able to 
say how far tnercy to offenders ought to be carried, and where it 
ceases to deserve the name of mercy and becomes a pernicious 
weakness? What casuist, what lawgiver, has ever been able 
nicely to mark the limits of the right of self-defence ? All our 
jurists hold that a certain quantity of risk to life or limb justifies a 
man in shooting or stabbing an assailant; but they have long 
given up, in despair, the attempt to describe, in precise words, that 
quantity of risk. They only say that it must be, not a slight risk, 
but a risk such as would cause serious apprehension to a man of 
firm mind; and who will undertake to say what is the precise 
amount of apprehension which deserves to be called serious, or 
what is the precise texture of mind which deserves to be called 
firm] It is doubtless to be regretted that the nature of words and 
the nature of things do not admit of more accurate legislation ; 



NOTES. 239 

nor can it be denied that wrong will often be done when men are 
judges in their own cause, and proceed instantly to execute their 
own judgment. Yet who would, on that account, interdict all 
self-defence ? The right which a people has to resist a bad go- 
vernment bears a close analogy to the right which an individual, in 
the absence of legal protection, has to slay an assailant. In both 
cases the evil must be grave. In both cases all regular and 
peaceable modes of defence must be exhausted before the 
aggrieved party resorts to extremities. In both cases an awful 
responsibility is incurred. In both cases the burden of the proof lies 
on him who has ventured on so desperate an expedient ; and, if 
ne fails to vindicate himself, he is justly liable to the severest 
penalties. But in neither case can we absolutely deny the exis- 
tence of the right. A man beset by assassins is not bound to let 
himself be tortured and butchered without using his weapons be- 
cause nobody has ever been able precisely to define the amount of 
danger which justifies homicide. Nor is a society bound to endure 
passively all that tyranny can inflict because nobody has ever been 
able precisely to define the amount of misgovernment which justi- 
fies rebellion. 

"But could the resistance of Englishmen to such a prince as 
James be properly called rebellion ? The thorough-paced disciples 
of Filmer, indeed, maintained that there was no difference what- 
ever between the polity of our country and that of Turkey; and 
that, if the King did not confiscate the contents of all the tills in 
Lombard- street, and send mutes with bow-strings to Saner oft and 
Halifax, this was only because his Majesty was too gracious to use 
the whole power which he derived from Heaven. But the great 
body of Tories — though, in the heat of conflict, they might occa- 
sionally use language w T hich seemed to indicate that they approved 
of these extravagant doctrines — heartily abhorred despotism. The 
English Government was, in their view, a limited monarchy. Yet 
how can a monarchy be said to be limited if force is never to be 
employed, even in the last resort, for the purpose of maintaining 
the limitations ? In Muscovy, where the sovereign was, by the 
constitution of the state, absolute, it might perhaps be with some 
color of truth contended that, whatever excesses he might commit, 
he was still entitled to demand, on Christian principles, the obe- 
dience of his subjects. But here prince and people were alike 
bound by the laws. It was therefore James who incurred the 



240 NOTES. 

woe denounced against those who insult the powers that be. It 
was James who was resisting the ordinance of God, who was mu- 
tinying against that legitimate authority to which he ought to have 
been subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake, and 
who was, in the true sense of the words of Jesus, withholding 
from Caesar the things which were Caesar's." 



NOTE I.— Lecture 2, p. 82. 

Although Michaelis at first rather denies what in the 
end he seems to admit as the great moral duty enforced in 
this command, yet as his remarks contain several curious and 
interesting facts, I have made the following extracts from 
them : — 

" It is the command of Moses, that if a person find a bird's 
nest in the way, whether on a tree or on the ground, though he 
may take the eggs or the young, he shall not take the mother, but 
always allow her to escape. It is clear that he here speaks, not 
of those birds which nestle upon people's property — in other 
words, that he does not, for instance, prohibit an Israelite from 
totally destroying a sparrow's or a swallow's nest that might hap- 
pen to be troublesome to him, or to extirpate, to the utmost of 
his power, the birds that infested his field or vineyard. He 
merely enjoins what one was to do on finding such nests on the 
way — that is, without one's property; thus guarding against the 
utter extinction, or too great diminution, of any species of bird in- 
digenous to the country. And this, in some countries, is still, 
with respect to partridges, an established rule; which, without 
a special law, is observed by every real sportsman, and the breach 
of which subjects him to the reproaches of his brethren." 

It is a singular fancy in Michaelis, that he should inter- 
pret the words, ' ' in the way," to mean, " without one's pro- 
perty." Birds have no partiality for building their nests on 
the public road or on the wayside. On the contrary, they 
seek retirement, and build their nests where secrecy gives 
them most security from discovery and violation. When 



NOTES. 241 

Moses speaks of a " bird's nest that may chance to be before 
us in the way," he refers to a nest that a man might find in 
his way wherever he might chance to be going, whether in 
the fields or in the woods. Besides, as Moses is here speak- 
ing of birds and fowls generally, why should a man be told 
to take only the eggs or young, which may be valuable for 
food, if found on the wayside, implying that he must not 
touch them if found on his own premises ? Or, if we sup- 
pose Moses to be here speaking of birds that may be an in- 
jury to the fields if greatly multiplied, why is he so careful 
to teach that the young or the eggs must be destroyed, if 
found without a man's premises, making no reference to 
those found within his enclosures? Such birds especially, 
have no great regard for the landmarks which define 
property. — Michaelis proceeds: 

"Nor would any further illustration he necessary if Moses 
spoke only of edible birds, and as if merely concerned for their 
preservation. But this is not the case. His expression is so gene- 
ral, that we must needs understand it of all birds whatever, even 
those that are most destructive, besides what are properly birds of 
prey. And here many readers may think it strange, that Moses 
should be represented as providing for the preservation of noxious 
birds ; yet, in fact, nothing can be more conformable to legislative 
wisdom, especially on the introduction of colonies into a new 
country. To extirpate, or even to persecute to too great an ex- 
tent, any species of birds in such a country, from an idea, often too 
hastily entertained, of its being hostile to the interests of the in- 
habitants, is a measure of very doubtful policy. It ought, in gen- 
eral, to be considered as a part of Nature's bounty, bestowed for 
some important puipose ; but what that is, we certainly discover 
too late, when it has been extirpated, and the evil consequences of 
that measure are begun to be felt. 

" In this matter the legislator should take a lesson from the 
naturalist. Linnaeus, whom all will allow to be a perfect master 
in the science of Natural History, has made the above remark in 
his dissertation, entitled i Historia Naturalis cui Bono f and gives 

11 



242 NOTES. 

two remarkable examples to confirm it; the one in the case of the 
Little Crew of Virginia, extirpated at great expense on account 
of its supposed destructive effects, and which the inhabitants would 
soon gladly have re-introduced at double expense. The account 
of the circumstance is given in the * Hanover Magazine ' for the 
year 1767, as follows : — ' In the English colonies of North Ameri- 
ca, it was remarked that a certain sort of crow frequented the 
peas fields ; and in order to put a stop to its ravages for ever, 
its utter extirpation was resolved on. But this was no sooner 
effected, than an insect of the beetle kind, which had always been 
known also to do some mischief to the peas, multiplied to such a 
degree that very few peas were left. An intelligent naturalist 
thought this occurrence worth investigation, and found that the 
crows were not in quest of peas, but only devouring these bee- 
tles; and, of course, that had they not been extirpated, these insects 
could not have increased so much, and the crops of peas would 
have been more abundant. At somewhat less expense the same 
truth was, some time ago, confirmed in Sweden. The common 
crow was thought to be too fond of the young roots of grass, being 
observed sometimes to pick them out and lay them bare. Orders 
were therefore given to the people to be at all pains to extirpate 
them, till some person, more judicious, opposed this, and showed 
that it was not the roots of the grass, but the destructive caterpil- 
lars of certain insects which fed on them, that the crows searched 
for and devoured.' Every one knows what vexation sparrows oc- 
casion to the owners of gardens and corn fields. In the year 1745 
fields were not unfrequently to be seen so completely destroyed, 
that scarcely the seed remained ; and in the gardens which they 
haunt, they pick the peas, when they spring out of the earth, with 
such avidity that a crop cannot be raised. Their excessive multi- 
plication, therefore, ought certainly to be prevented ; and it is the 
right and interest of every householder to extirpate them on his 
property. As the mischief they did, about thirty years ago, was 
so very great, particularly in Prussia, where the laws take more 
concern in matters of economy than in other countries, there took 
place, if I rightly remember, at the instigation of a person whose 
name was Kretschmar, such a violent persecution of the sparrows 
in Prussia, as if their utter extirpation had been determined on. 
This persecution was just, but it was carried too far, for Kretsch- 
mar was too great an enemy to the sparrows ; being, indeed, a 



NOTES. 243 

good economist, as far as a good head, without study, could make 
him so, but then quite unacquainted with Natural History. And 
the effects of his ignorance soon appeared ; for caterpillars multi- 
plied to such a pitch, that it was found necessary to put a stop to 
the persecution, that the sparrows might destroy them. 

"It is quite a well-known circumstance, that in the year 1761, 
after the conclusion of the war, when the sparrows in this corner 
withdrew far from the city into the fields, because among the great 
quantity of spilled corn they found superabundance of food, it was 
impossible to protect the gardens about Gottingen from the depre- 
dations of the caterpillar. 

" In North America another evil has been found to result from 
destroying too many of these birds. The gnats increased to such 
a degree, especially in moist places, that the people and cattle were 
harassed by them much more than formerly. These examples 
serve pretty strongly to show, that in respect at least to birds, we 
ought to place as much confidence in the wisdom and kindness of 
Nature, as not rashly to extirpate any species which she has estab- 
lished in a country as a great and perhaps indispensable blessing. 
" That Moses should have affixed no punishment to the viola- 
tion of this game law, (for such, in my opinion, is its most proper 
name,) but merely promised, and that almost in the language of 
the fifth commandment, blessings from heaven to those who ob- 
served it, for their compassion to animals and the mothers of ani- 
mals, will not appear strange to any man that has any ideas of 
legislative policy. The blessing of God to the keepers of a law 
so important to Palestine, Moses certainly could promise with 
much more propriety than any of our legislators, because he spoke 
as a prophet, and as a legislator sent from God, and because the 
Israelitish Government had the form of a theocracy. But to none 
other, than a divinely-inspired legislator, is it competent to de- 
nounce curses, or promise blessings, in the name of the Most 
High. 

"It is singular, after all, that the very blessing of the fifth com- 
mandment is annexed to this law. In following out the idea, we 
are almost tempted to believe that Moses had designed to connect 
this law for the preservation of birds, with that commandment; 
and to represent the mothers even of beasts as objects (of our 
veneration, shall I say? No, that were too much, but) of our 
dutiful regards ; so that parents, even those of inferior animals, 



244 NOTES. 

deserve to be viewed with emotions of tenderness and gratitude, 
in recompense, as it were, for their care in the propagation of 
their species." 

These facts in natural history serve to show how little we 
understand of the wisdom and mercy with which the Most 
High has adapted one part of creation to meet the wants or 
condition of another. The wisest of men have yet much to 
learn on this subject. M ! Lord," says David, " how mam- 
fold are thy works ; in wisdom hast thou made them all ; the 
earth is full of thy riches. " Every thing in the multiplied 
and manifold works of God is made to answer some purpose 
of perfect wisdom and rich goodness ; and man in his igno- 
rance often complains of that very thing as a tormenting 
evil, which is in reality an indispensable good. 



NOTE K.— Lecture 3, p. 112. 

Just after the delivery of these Lectures the treaty was 
made with Mexico, ceding to us New Mexico and California. 
Though this accession of territory may be said in one sense 
to have been gained by conquest, yet it results in the volun- 
tary and anxious application of the people for admission into 
the Union. Our victory is far from reducing them to the 
condition of Colonies. It exalts them to an equality with 
ourselves in privileges, which they were desirous to enjoy; 
and severs them from a political connection which they had 
previously, and for years, been desirous to break. 

This cession forms another link in the chain of events 
which men, "having knowledge of the times," have fore- 
told during the last fifty years. It has now become the 
general opinion of those who study and understand the 



NOTES. 245 

progress of nations, that the territory of the United States 
will ultimately embrace the whole of North America. The 
spirit of expansion and colonization which distinguish the 
Anglo-Saxon race, will necessarily either crowd off, or in- 
corporate with themselves, the more indolent and effete 
races that now occupy regions capable of being turned to 
much better account, if in better hands. It should be our 
constant care that nothing be done for this object which 
would be a violation of our honor and regard for justice 
as a Christian nation. Events are ripening spontaneously 
to give us increased territory quite as rapidly as we are 
ready to receive it, and to give it homogeneousness of cha- 
racter and spirit with our institutions. In former enlarge- 
ments of the national boundaries the policy of the govern- 
ment has been eminently just and pacific. Louisiana became 
ours by purchase ; Florida by friendly negociation with the 
parent State ; and Texas by voluntary annexation. The 
origin of the war with Mexico involves questions on which 
it is not my province to pronounce; but it has led in the 
end, as all admit, to the payment of just debts long due to 
our citizens, and to the discovery of mineral wealth which 
will soon effect a great revolution in the commerce of the 
world, and which might have remained hidden and un- 
touched for centuries had the country containing it, remained 
under its former rulers. 

How soon other applications for incorporation into the 
Union may reach us, and whether they are to come from 
the North or the South, or simultaneously from both, time 
will show. But the public mind should become familiarized 
with the subject, for every intelligent observer of passing 
events must perceive that before long the nation will be 
called to act on the question. 



246 NOTES. 



NOTE L.— Lecture 3, p. 124. 

The great difficulty of conveying Christian truth in 
Pagan languages has been felt by Missionaries in all Pagan 
countries. But the peculiarities of the Chinese spoken lan- 
guage enhance the difficulty to an extent that is but little 
understood. The subject is happily and briefly illustrated 
in the following extracts taken from the Fortieth Annual 
Report of the American Board of Commission for Foreign 
Missions. Speaking of China, they say, — 

" In the opinion of the missionaries here, their future success 
in preaching will depend very much on their success in acquiring 
the tones and aspirates of the Chinese language, to which they 
are giving earnest attention. The written language may be un- 
derstood without a knowledge of the tones ; but in speaking, a 
correct use of them is indispensable. Without it, the speaker will 
be intelligible only to those who, being well acquainted with him, 
or with other unlearned foreigners like him, understand his ig- 
norance, and can mentally correct his blunders as he proceeds. 

" It is difficult to make this subject plain to the English reader. 
In our own language, the verb lead, and the noun lead, are written 
alike, but each has a different pronunciation and meaning from the 
other. Here, however, the vowel sounds in the two words are 
different. But in the Chinese spoken language, many words? 
having the same consonant and vowel sounds, and represented by 
the same written character, yet differing in signification, are dis- 
tinguished by some peculiarity in the mode of pronunciation. 
These different spoken words, however, are usually spoken as 
the same word under different tones. Perhaps the word there 
affords the best illustration in our language. In the phrase, " and 
there died of the people seventy thousand men," it is a mere ex- 
pletive without any distinct meaning. In the phrase, " and David 
built there an altar," it is an adverb of place. If it should be 
uttered in the first of these examples as in the last, it would 
change the meaning from a mere statement of the number that 
died, into an assertion that so many died in some specified place. 
On strict examination, probably, something of the same principle 



NOTES. 247 

might be detected in most languages, but in no others is it known 
to be so important as in the Chinese. In the dialect spoken at 
Fun-Chan, in many cases, the same written word may represent 
eight or ten spoken words, differing from each other in tone, 
aspiration, and meaning. Nor is it yet found that the ten or less 
different tones of the same written word have any natural or lo- 
gical relation to each other. For example, the same Chinese 
character, the consonant and vowel sounds of which are repre- 
sented by the same Roman letters, pang, represents ten distinct 
words in the spoken language, differing in tone and aspiration, 
and signifying, 1, to help; 2, a bee; 3, to bind; 4, to spin; 5, to 
let go ; 6, corpulent ; 7, a room; 8, a sail; 9, a club; 10, a seam. 
And yet these ten spoken words are readily distinguished by the 
Chinese ear ; and w r hoever utters the written word pang, must of 
necessity utter it in some one of these ten ways, so as to express 
some one of these ideas to the exclusion of the rest." 



NOTE M.— Lecture 4, p. 152. 

I am aware that efforts have been made to discredit 
these tables of moral statistics. But facts and figures are 
stubborn things. Although the conclusions from the state- 
ments may have been carried somewhat too far, as is 
generally the case in all new modes of reasoning, they will 
be found substantially correct. Many of the tables have 
been prepared with indefatigable industry and great caution; 
and although the conclusions to which they lead tell with 
singular power in favor of Christianity as essential to the 
welfare of a people generally educated, the facts and figures 
leading to the conclusion were generally prepared by men 
who cannot be suspected of any partiality either for Chris- 
tianity or the Bible which reveals it. Indeed, they admit 
in some cases that their investigations led to results which 
they were reluctant to embrace. M. d'Angeville, in his 



248 NOTES. 

Essay on the Moral and Intellectual Statistics of France, 
expressly declares that his mind had long combatted the 
evidence of facts on this subject, before his own investi- 
gations forced him to the conclusion that in France crime 
generally keeps pace with primary education. 

The complicated action and reaction of various causes 
on the social and moral condition of a people should teach 
us to be cautious in the adoption of any specific theory. 
But there are some general conclusions so supported by an 
array of evidence that they cannot be denied. Readers who 
have not time to examine different authors on the subject, 
will find the whole question respecting the value of statis- 
tical information on crime and its causes happily presented 
in the Edinburgh Review, vol. 69, p. 47—74, where d'An- 
geville's work is reviewed, and such reference made to 
Que tele t and others as may enable the reader to become 
acquainted with the more important features belonging to 
the question. 



NOTE N.— Lecture 4, p. 159. 

There are several judicial decisions which might be quoted 
on this subject, but I shall confine myself to a case recently 
decided by the Court of Errors in the State of South Carolina. 
It was that of a man who was prosecuted by the City Council 
of Charleston for selling goods on the Lord's day, or the 
Christian Sabbath. The decision was given against him, and 
in pronouncing the judgment of the Court, Judge O'Neall 
held the following language : — 

"Crimes are classed into Mala in se and Mala prohibita. 
What gives them that character] We cannot answer, as the 



NOTES. 249 

Israelites would do, by pointing to Mount Sinai, and say the Lord 
God commanded us, saying, ' thou shalt not kill,' ' thou shalt not 
steal.' The authority of these divine precepts comes to us through 
Christianity. We are ' the wild olive tree grafted,' in place of the 
broken branches of the original tree, Israel. And hence the law 
delivered at Mount Sinai may be by us appealed to, as pointing 
out that which is ' evil in itself.' 

" Again, our law declares all contracts contra bonos mores as 
illegal and void. What constitutes the standard of good morals'? 
Is it not Christianity ? There certainly is none other. Say that 
cannot be appealed to, and I don't know what would be good 
morals. The day of moral virtue in which we live, would in an 
instant, if that standard were abolished, lapse into the dark and 
murky night of Pagan immorality. In this State the marriage tie 
is indissoluble. Whence do we take that maxim ? It is from the 
teaching of the New Testament alone, 

" In the courts over which we preside, we daily acknowledge 
Christianity as the most solemn part of our administration. A 
Christian witness, having no religious scruples against placing his 
hand upon the book, is sworn upon the holy Evangelists, the 
books of the New Testament, which testify of our Saviour's birth, 
life, death and resurrection. This is so common a matter, that it 
is little thought of as affording any evidence of the part which 
Christianity has in the common law. 

" All blasphemous publications, carrying upon their face that 
irreverent rejection of God and his holy religion, which makes 
them dangerous to the community, have always been held to be 
libels, and punishable at common law. Here they would also be 
plain acts of licentiousness, having no warrant of protection what- 
ever in our constitution. This, however, never could extend to 
free and manly discussion on these holy subjects. For I agree 
with Mr. Jefferson, (Notes on Va. 235,) 'Our rulers can have 
authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to 
them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we never 
could submit. We are answerable for them to our God ! ' But I 
should hesitate long in pushing the argument as far as he does 
by saying, as he does, that in its exercise ' it does me no injury 
for my neighbor to say there are twenty Gods, or no God.' While 
the argument rests only in words, it would be so evanescent that 
it might be no injurv. But when it comes to be put in print 

11* 



250 NOTES. 

to be read, like Paine's Age of Reason, by the young and the un. 
wary, where is the parent who would say ' It does me no injury? 
I agree fully to what is beautifully and appropriately said in Up- 
degraff v. Commonwealth (11 Serg. and Rawle, 394); 'Christian- 
ity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, part of the 
common law;' not Christianity founded on any particular religious 
tenets ; not Christianity with an established church, and tithes, 
and spiritual courts • but Christianity with liberty of conscience 
to all men. 

" But I nave said all which need be said on this interesting 
subject. It was not necessary for the decision of this case; it has 
only been said to prevent silence from being interpreted into a 
want of confidence in the proposition, that Christianity may be 
justly appealed to as part of our common law." 



NOTE O.— -Lecture 5, p. 170. 

The oppression and gross inequalities of condition which 
have arisen from the possession of vast landed estates, are 
still very glaring in several of the nations in Europe. In 
Kussia, for instance, the land is so entirely in the hands of 
the nobles as to keep the mass of the people in the most 
degrading slavery ; and even in England, as may be seen 
from the following statement, much as she has done, and is 
doing, on behalf of her people, the immense estates held by 
the aristocracy are 'an insuperable bar against a general ele- 
vation of their condition. In a digest of Colman's recent 
work on Europe, published in several papers, it appears 
that 

" Althorpe, the residence of Earl Spencer, consists of 10,000 
acres, * all lying together in wood, meadow, pasture, gardens, parks, 
and every thing in a style of superior beauty and order.' His 
house contains sleeping rooms for seventy guests — the entries and 
rooms are filled with pictures and statues. A gallery of pictures, 
one hundred feet long, contains many of the works of the first 



NOTES. 251 

masters. His library comprises more than 50,000 volumes, and 
is said to be the finest private library in the world. 

"The Duke of Richmond's home farm (Goodwood) consists 
of 23,000 acres. His whole domain at Goodwood is 40,000 acres. 
He has a summer retreat in Scotland of between 200,000 and 
300,000 acres. * Of the beauty and magnificence of this establish- 
ment,' says Mr. Colman, ' I cannot give you any adequate idea; 
— extensive parks through which you ride for miles and miles — 
herds of deer, sheep, and cattle. The Duke has more than forty 
race horses, and sixty grooms and hostlers. His salmon fisheries 
at the Gordon Castle used to be let for £10,000, and now lets for 
£7,000 per annum, or $35,000. 

"The annual income of the Duke of Devonshire, the proprietor 
of Chatsworth, is said to be £200,000, or one million of dollars. 
This is said to be the most splendid nobleman's seat in the king- 
dom. His arboretum, covering many acres, contains one or more 
specimens of every tree that can be acclimated ; the kitchen gar- 
den covers twelve acres; a conservatory, 387 feet long, 117 wide, 
67 high, with a carriage-way. This conservatory is covered with 
7,600 square feet of glass, and warmed with hot water, passing 
through an extent of seven miles. The fountain at Chatsworth 
throws the water to an height of 276 feet. 

"Mr. Colman gives an account of several noblemen whose 
annual income varied from £100,000 to £150,000 ; that is, from 
$500,000 to $750,000. Speaking of Lord Yarborough, he says 
that his Lordship ' has an indefinite number of hunters, &c.' and 
adds — ' It was the custom at this place for his Lordship, (and his 
guests were always invited to accompany him,) at nine o'clock 
precisely, in the evening, to visit the stables where the hunting 
and riding horses were kept, which were reached by a covered 
passage way from the house. The stables presented all the neat- 
ness of a house parlor, and the grooms were more than a dozen 
in number, all drawn up in a line to receive the company.' Lord 
Yarborough has more than 60,000 acres in his plantation ; he has 
600 tenants, and you can ride thirty miles in a direct line upon 
his estate. ' Many of the tenants of Lord Yarborough pay 1,000 
and 1,400 guineas a year rent, and several of them live like 
noblemen, keeping their dogs, horses, carriages, and servants in 
livery.' 

"After alluding to a court ball, at which one lady wore £60,000 



252 I NOTES. 

or $300,000 worth of diamonds, Mr. C. remarks — ' The Duchess 
of Roxburgh, whom I do not know, appeared most splendidly; 
and well she might, as the annual income of the Duke is stated 
to be £300,000.' " 

We might add several others to the vast estates which 
he has enumerated. The property of the Dukes of Gordon, 
for instance, in the counties of Banff, Moray, Aberdeen, and 
Inverness, covers 422,000 acres ; and if to this we add their 
estates on the Dee, their whole possessions will exceed 550,000 
acres. The large estates in land held by proprietors in Ireland 
are a great obstacle in the way of the noble efforts which 
are made to elevate and improve the condition of the over- 
stocked population in that island. We cannot too highly 
commend, the efforts now made to remedy the evil, and to 
put the waste lands under cultivation by men who will have 
permanent interest in the soil. 



NOTE P.— Lecture 5, 178. 

Since the foregoing pages were in type, the Legislature 
of the State of New- York has passed a law for the exemp- 
tion of the Homestead. 

There were some exceptions to the law restoring the 
landed inheritance on the year of Jubilee, but not such as 
to impair its general effect ; while to prevent the exceptions 
from being carried too far, they were defined with great care. 
In Lev. 27 : 16-21, it is enacted, that in case a man had 
consecrated a field to God, he might redeem it on paying 
the value of the crops till the coming Jubilee, and one fifth 
more to the priests. Otherwise, at the Jubilee, the field, 
instead of reverting to its former owner, became a part of the 



NOTES. 253 

inheritance of the priesthood, as a thing devoted to the 
Lord. 

There is an interpretation often given to the law in Deut. 
15 : 1—11, which in this connection is deserving of attention. 
The enactment is considered by some as cancelling all debts 
due from one Hebrew to another every seventh year. Others 
consider the privilege ensured to the debtor every seventh 
year, as merely " a release " from a claim for payment on 
that year, in consequence of allowing his land to lie fallow, 
as the law required. Michaelis, in his commentary on this 
law, says : 

" One privilege only did Moses concede to the debtors, and 
among a nation of husbandmen it was, indeed, an indispensable 
one. In the seventh year, during which all the land lay fallow, 
no debt could be exacted from a poor man, because then he had 
no income whence to pay it. To debtors not poor, this privilege 
did not apply ; for the words immediately following in ver. 4 are, 
save when he is not one of the poor among you, <$*c. on which words 
others have put this strange construction, as if Moses, in a law 
enacted in favor of the poor, had promised there should be no 
poor among the Israelites ; but they thus get into an embarras- 
ment, in comparing one passage with another ; since, in ver. 1 1 
of this very chapter, he says, that there should always be poor 
persons among the Israelites. This law, besides, applied only to 
the Israelites, and not to strangers who possessed no land, and 
of course were not in the seventh year differently circumstanced, 
from what they were during the other six. Them, therefore, 
creditors might then sue for the payment of debt, with all rigor." 

How far and how often the government of a country 
should interfere or enact laws for the release of debtors, has 
long been viewed as a very doubtful and difficult question of 
political economy. It has repeatedly occupied the atten- 
tion of statesmen in our own nation, and much diversity of 
opinion respecting it prevails to this day. I will therefore 



254 NOTES. 

make some further extracts from Michaelis, showing how a 
man of his mind and learning viewed the subject. In his 
commentary on the law above quoted, he adds : 

" Many have been inclined so to understand this law, as if, in 
the seventh year, all debts were to be cancelled ; and the Talmud 
has actually adopted this explanation, endeavoring withal to 
guard against the evils of the year of release, by all manner of 
moral considerations. 

u That every seventh year all debts should be extinguished, is a 
law so absurd, so unjust, and so destructive to the interests of all 
classes of the community, that we are not warranted to ascribe it 
to a legislator, nor even to a turbulent tribune of the people, un- 
less he has enacted it in terms the most express, and such as 
leave not the shadow of a doubt as to his meaning. 

" There may, I grant, extraordinary cases occur, which render 
the extinction of all debts necessary ; particularly when, by the 
charge of imnloderate and usurious interest, or by any other arti- 
fices of moneyed men, they have become so enormous as that 
the state can no longer subsist under them. Thus among the 
Romans, Nova Tabulae were sometimes projected; a measure, 
however, which, by reason of the great confusion which it must 
have made in the commonwealth, was dreaded by every good 
citizen, and even by those that were themselves debtors, as a very 
great evil. I will farther admit, and therefore, I am here suffi- 
ciently liberal, that it may be a problem in politics, whether it 
might not be expedient that all debts should be extinguished 
every fifty or a hundred years; in order to avoid law-suits, which 
extend to so long a period, to secure property more effectually, 
and to prevent children and grandchildren from groaning under 
the heavy burdens of the debts of their forefathers] Such a 
periodical extinction of debts, in regard to which, however, to 
make it just, we must presuppose an expeditious administration 
of justice, in order to bring law-suits to an end before the year 
of remission, would have a strong resemblance to legal prescrip- 
tion ; nor should I have had anything to object to it, if Moses 
(and thus Josephus explains him) had ordained the extinction of 
debts only every fiftieth year. But a septennial extinction of 



NOTES. 255 

debts with Nova Tabula, (a phrase which made the Roman state 
to tremble, when a tribune of the people but uttered it,) how 
great would be its injustice, and the misery it would occasion ! 
Under such a law, none would be so foolish as to lend ; so that 
those who stood in need of loans would only be in a w T orse pre- 
dicament, through the mistaken clemency of the legislator. But 
what, above all, would be the absurdity of the exhortation in ver. 
9, 10, to lend to the poo?', and not to entertain the base thought of 
the near approach of the seve?ith year; but however near it were, to 
let him have whatever he wanted, were all debts cancelled every 
seventh year ? Neither property nor honor could be secure, were 
such an exhortation respected. The poor might then, in the sixth 
year, impose the greatest hardships on the rich, and borrow from 
them to any extent, without repaying a farthing. 

****** * **** 
"Of the injustice of such a law, I shall say nothing; for 
of that every one will be sensible, who places himself in the 
situation of a person aware that to-morrow all debts become 
legally cancelled, to whom comes a poor man to-day, not asking 
an alms at the good pleasure of the giver, but demanding a loan 
determined in its magnitude by himself, and which, he is remind- 
ed, the law enjoins him not to be so hard-hearted and selfish as 
to refuse. I only ask this question : What country could sub- 
sist under such a law ? Who could have any inclination to in- 
dustry, or the acquisition of riches, if every seventh year his 
earnings lay at the mercy of every beggar 1 A country where 
laws so unjust prevailed, every man of wealth would be either 
compelled to leave, (and the sooner he did so the better;) or 
else, as is necessary under tyrannical governments, w T here the 
greedy despot seeks to lay hold of the property of his subjects, 
under every possible pretext, he must affect poverty, and live 
like a beggar. In either case, the poor, who most generally de- 
rive their subsistence from the rich, will be placed in circumstan- 
stances truly deplorable. 

" Has Moses, then, by the tenor of any of his other laws, de- 
served to have the reproach of such an absurdity cast upon him ? 
By no means, in my judgment ; and therefore it would be but 
fair to put upon his law concerning the seventh year, not an ir- 
rational, but a rational construction. The word Schemitta (nt3M 



256 NOTES. 

employed by Moses, and which Luther renders Erloss, (Eng, 
vers, release,) is, like many other terms of law, not so etymologi- 
cal ly clear as could be wished. At the same time it includes 
nothing that indicates a total remission of debt. By a compari- 
son with the Syriac and Arabic languages, its original significa- 
tion would appear to have been, suspend or let fall. — The complete 
phrase, ver. 2, 3, means, the creditor shall not in the seventh year 
let fall his hand (Shamot Jado), which is equivalent to saying, he 
shall not seize the debtor, or as a Roman would have expressed 
it, manum non injiciet : and if there should be any doubt how 
Moses wished this to be understood, he himself explained it in 
ver. 2, by saying, he shall not exact it of his debtor. Here follow 
the words as I translate them, to a person who prefers having 
them, though in bad German, yet more close to the Hebrew : 
Nach Ablauf von sieben Jahren sollst du Schemitta machen. Sche- 
mata aber est, dass jeder Glaubijer der seinem Nachsten geborget 
hat, seine hand fallen lasst ; er soil seinem Nachsten und Bruder 
nicht exequiren. In English : After the expiration of seven years, 
thou shalt make a Schemitta ; but a Schemitta is, that every cre- 
ditor who has lent to his neighbor, let Ml his hand ; he shall not 
have recourse to legal execution on his neighbor and brother. 
Now, let every man judge for himself, which of these two things 
Moses intended — whether, 

" ] . In the seventh year, no debtors should be dunned, or debts 
sued for ; w T hich was a very rational precept, because then the 
Israelite derived no income from his land — or whether, 

" 2. In the seventh year all debts were to be completely and 
for ever extinguished, and without the creditor having it in his 
power to demand them either in the seventh or eighth or any 
subsequent year ; — a precept which has not the most remote ra- 
tional connexion with the fallow of the seventh year, but would 
have been altogether arbitrary and insulated." 



NOTE Q.— Lecture 5, p. 208. 



As an illustration of the success with which conflicting 
views have been reconciled in former times, I will refer to 
an incident in the history of the Convention which framed 



NOTES. 257 

the Constitution of the United States ; and I do it the more 
readily as the occasion formed an important crisis in the 
history of the nation, and we sometimes have accounts 
of the proceedings which do not accord with the facts. A 
correspondent of the Xew- York Observer has recently given 
the following spirited description of the whole scene : 

u Messrs. Editors, — The following narrative, relating a 
fine, not to say a sublime scene, in the Convention that framed the 
Constitution of the United States, was originally derived from 
Gen. Jonathan Dayton of Jersey. He was the ' Junior member'' 
that moved the ; re-consideration ' mentioned below. The account 
is full of interest and instruction at the present time, when the 
spirit of discord and selfishness is so rife in our national councils. 
Would that a copy of it could be sent to every member of our Na- 
tional Legislature, and that it could be read by every Christian and 
patriot throughout the land. 

" I was (said General Dayton) a delegate from New Jersey in 
the General Convention which assembled in Philadelphia, for the 
purpose of digesting a Constitution for the United States, and I 
believe I was the youngest member of that body. The great and 
good Washington was then our President, and Dr. Franklin, 
among other great men, was a delegate from Pennsylvania. A 
disposition was soon discovered in some members to display them- 
selves in oratorical flourishes — but the good sense and discretion 
of the majority put down all such attempts. We had convened to 
deliberate upon, and if possible effect, a great national object — to 
search for political wisdom and truth ; these, we meant to pursue 
with simplicity, and to avoid every thing which would have a ten- 
dency to divert our attention or perplex our scheme. 

" A great variety of projects were proposed — all republican in 
general outlines, but differing in their details. It was therefore 
determined that certain elementary principles should at the first 
be established in each branch of the intended Constitution, — and 
afterwards the details should be debated and filled up. 

" There was little or no difficulty in determining upon the 
elementary principles — such as, for instance, that the government 
should be a republican representative government — that it should 
be divided into three branches, i. e. Legislative, Executive and 



258 NOTES. 

Judical, &c. But when the organization of the Legislative branch 
came under consideration, it was easy to be perceived that the 
Eastern and Southern States had distinct interests, which it w T as 
difficult to reconcile, — and that the larger States were disposed to 
form a constitution in which the smaller States would be mere ap- 
pendages and satellites to the larger ones. On the first of these 
subjects much animated and somewhat angry debate had taken 
place, when the ratio of representation in the lower house of Con- 
gress was before us — the Southern States claiming for themselves 
the whole number of black population; while the Eastern States 
were for confining the elective franchise to freemen only, without 
respect to color. 

v As the different parties adhered pertinaciously to their different 
positions, it was feared that this w T ould prove an insurmountable 
obstacle ; but as the members were already generally satisfied that 
no constitution could be formed, which would meet the views and 
subserve the interests of each individual State, it was evident that 
it must be a matter of compromise and mutual concession. Under 
these impressions, and with these views, it was agreed at length 
that each State should be entitled to one delegate in the House of 
Representatives for every 30,000 of its inhabitants — in which num- 
ber should be included three-fifths of the whole number of their 
slaves. 

" When the details of the House of Representatives were dis- 
posed of, a more knotty point presented itself in the organization 
of the Senate. The larger States contended that the same ratio 
as to States should be common to both branches of the Legisla- 
ture ; or, in other words, that each State should be entitled to a 
representation in the Senate, (whatever might be the number fixed 
on,) in proportion to its population, as in the House of Represen- 
tatives. The smaller States on the other hand contended, that 
the House of Representatives might be considered as the guardian 
of the liberties of the people, and therefore ought to have a just 
proportion to their numbers ; but that the Senate represented the 
sovereignty of the States, and that as each State, whether great 
or small, was equally an independent and sovereign State, it ought 
in this branch of the Legislature to have equal weight and autho- 
rity. Without this, they said, there would be no security for their 
equal rights, and they would by such a distribution of power, be 
merged and lost in the larger States. 

"This reasoning, however plain and powerful, had but little in- 



NOTES. 259 

duence on the minds of the delegates from the larger States; and 
as they formed a large majority of the Convention, the question, 
after passing through the forms of debate, was decided that each 
State should be represented in the Senate in proportion to its po. 
pulation. 

" When the Convention had adjourned over to tte next day, tne 
delegates of the four smallest States, viz. Rhode Island, Connec- 
ticut, New Jersey and Deleware, convened to consult what course 
was to be pursued in the important crisis at which we had arrived. 
After serious investigation, it was solemnly determined to ask for 
a reconsideration the next morning ; and if it was not granted — 
or if, when granted, that offensive feature of the constitution could 
not be expunged, and the smaller States put upon an equal footing 
with the largest, we would secede from the Convention ; and re- 
turning to our constituents, inform them that no compact could be 
formed with the large States, but one which would sacrifice our 
sovereignty and independence. 

" I was deputed to be the organ through which this communi- 
cation should be made. I know not why, unless it be that young 
men are generally chosen to perform rash actions. Accordingly, 
when ^e Convention had assembled, and as soon as the minutes 
of the last sitting were read, I rose and stated the view we had 
taken of the organization of the Senate, our desire to obtain a 
reconsideration and suitable modification of that article, and in 
failure thereof, our determination to secede from the Convention, 
and return to our constituents. 

" This disclosure, it may readily be supposed, produced an im- 
mediate and great excitement in every part of the house. Several 
members were immediately on the floor to express their surprise 
or indignation. They represented that the question had received 
a full and fair investigation, and had been definitively settled by 
a very large majority. That it was altogether unparliamentary 
and unreasonable for one of the minority to propose a reconsidera- 
tion at the moment their act had become a matter of record, and 
without pretending that any new light could be thrown on the sub- 
ject. That if such a precedent should be established, it would in 
future be impossible to say when any one point was distinctly set- 
tled, as a small minority might at any moment, again and again, 
move and obtain a reconsideration. They therefore hoped the 



260 NOTES 

Convention would express its decided disapprobation by passing 
silently to the business before them. 

" There was much warm and some acrimonious feeling exhi- 
bited by a number of the speakers ; a rupture appeared almost in- 
evitable, and the bosom of Washington seemed to labor with the 
most anxious solicitude for its issue. Happily for the United 
States, the Convention contained some individuals possessed of 
talents and virtues of the highest order, whose hearts were 
deeply interested in the establishment of a new and efficient form 
of government, and whose penetrating minds had already deplor- 
ed the evils which would spring up in our newly established re- 
public, should the present attempt to consolidate it prove abortive. 
Among these personages the most prominent was Dr. Franklin. 
He was esteemed the Mentor of our body. To a mind naturally 
strong and capacious, enriched by much reading and the experi- 
ence of many years, he added a manner of communicating 
his thoughts peculiarly his own, in which simplicity, beauty, and 
strength were equally conspicuous. As soon as the angry orators 
who had preceded him had left him an opening, the Doctor rose, 
evidently impressed with the weight of the subject before them, 
and the difficulty of managing it successfully. ' We have arrived, 
Mr. President,' said he, c at a very momentous and interesting 
crisis in our deliberations. Hitherto our views have been as har- 
monious, and our progress as great, as could reasonably have been 
expected. But now an unlooked for and formidable obstacle is 
thrown in our way, which threatens to arrest our course, and, if 
not skilfully removed, to render all our fond hopes of a Constitu- 
tion abortive. The ground which has been taken by the delegates 
of the four smallest States was as unexpected by me, and as re- 
pugnant to my feelings, as it can be to any other member of this 
Convention. After what I thought a full and impartial investiga- 
tion of the subject, I recorded my vote on the affirmative side of 
the question, and I have not yet heard £hy thing which induces 
me to change my opinion. But I will not conclude it is impos- 
sible for me to be wrong. I will not say that those gentlemen 
who differ from me are under a delusion — much less will I charge 
them with an intention of needlessly embarrassing our delibera- 
tions. It is possible some change in our late proceedings ought 
to take place upon principles of political justice ; or that, all things 
considered, the majority may see cause to recede from some of 



NOTES. 261 

their just pretensions, as a matter of prudence and expedience. 
For my own part, there is nothing I so much dread as a failure 
to devise and establish some efficient and equal form of govern- 
ment fo>* oar infant republic. The present eifort has been made 
'under the happiest auspices, and has promised the most favorable 
results : but should this effort prove vain, it will be long ere an* 
other can be made with any prospect of success. Our strength 
and our prosperity will depend on our unity ; and the secession of 
even four of the smallest States, interspersed as they are, would, 
in my mind paralyze and render useless any plan w T hich the ma* 
jority could devise. I should therefore be grieved, Mr. President, 
to see matters brought to the test which has been, perhaps too 
rashly, threatened on the one hand> and which some of my honored 
colleagues have treated too lightly on the other* I am convinc- 
ed that it is a subject which should be approached with caution, 
treated with tenderness, and decided on with candor and liberality. 
It is, however, to be feared that the members of this Convention 
are not in a temper, at this moment, to approach the subject on 
which we differ, in a proper spirit. I would therefore propose, 
Mr. President, that, without proceeding further in this business 
at this time, the Convention should adjourn for three days; in or- 
der to let the present ferment pass off, and to afford time for a 
more full and dispassionate investigation of the subject; and I 
would earnestly recommend to the members of this Convention that 
they spend the time of this recess, not in associating with their 
own party, and devising new arguments to fortify themselves in 
their own opinions, but that they mix with members of opposite 
sentiments, lend a patient ear to their reasoning, and candidly 
allow them all the weight to which they may be entitled; and 
when we assemble again, I hope it will be with a determination 
to form a Constitution — if not such an one as we can individual- 
ly, and in all respects, approve, yet the best which, under exist- 
ing circumstances, can be obtained.' Here the countenance of 
Washington brightened, and a cheering ray seemed to break in 
upon the gloom which had recently covered our political horizon. 
The Doctor continued : — ' Before I sit down, Mr. President, I will 
suggest another matter ; and I am really surprised that it has not 
been proposed by some other member at an earlier period of our 
deliberations. I will suggest, Mr. President, the propriety of no- 
minating and appointing, before we separate, a chaplain to this 
Convention, whose duty it shall be uniformly to assemble with 



262 xNOTES. 

us, and introduce the business of each day by an address to the 
Creator of the Universe, and the Governor of all nations, be- 
seeching Him to preside in our councils, enlighten our minds 
with a portion of heavenly wisdom, influence our hearts with 
a love of truth and justice, and crown our labors with complete 
and abundant success !' 

" The Doctor sat down ; and never did I behold a countenance 
at once so dignified and delighted as was that of Washington, at 
the close of his address. Nor were the members of this Conven- 
tion, generally, less affected. The words of the venerable Frank- 
lin fell upon our ears with a weight and authority, even greater 
than we may suppose an oracle to have had in a Roman Senate. 
A silent admiration superseded, for a moment, the expression of 
that assent and approbation which was strongly marked on al- 
most every countenance ; I say almost — for one man was found 

in the Convention, Mr. , of , who rose and said, 

with regard to the first motion of the honorable gentleman, for 
an adjournment, he would yield his consent; but he protested 
against the second motion, for the appointment of a Chaplain. 
He then commenced a high strained eulogium on the assemblage 
of wisdom, talent, and experience, which the Convention em- 
braced — declared the high sense he entertained of the honor 
which his constituents had conferred upon him, in making him 
a member of that respectable body; said he was confidently of 
opinion that they were competent to transact the business 
which had been entrusted to their care ; that they were equal to 
every exigence which might occur; and concluded by saying 
that, therefore, he had not seen the necessity of calling in fo- 
reign aid. 

" Washington fixed his eyes upon the speaker with a mixture 
of surprise and indignation, while he uttered this impertinent and 
impious speech, and then looked around to ascertain in what man- 
ner it affected others. They did not leave him a moment to 
doubt — no one deigned to reply, or take the smallest notice of the 
speaker, but the motion for appointing a Chaplain was instantly 
seconded and carried ; whether under the silent disapprobation of 
Mr. , or his solitary negative, I do not recollect. The mo- 
tion for an adjournment was then put, and carried unanimously; 
and the Convention adjourned accordingly. 

" The three days recess were spent in the manner advised by 
Doctor Franklin; the opposite parties mixed with each other, and 



notes. 263 

a free and frank interchange of sentiments took place. On the 
fourth day we assembled again ; and if great additional light had 
not been thrown on the subject, every unfriendly feeling had 
been expelled, and a spirit of conciliation had been cultivated 
which promised at least a calm and dispassionate reconsideration 
of the subject. 

" As soon as the Chaplain had closed his prayer, and the mi- 
nutes of the last sitting were read, all eyes were turned to the 
Doctor. He rose, and in a few words stated, that during the 
recess he had listened attentively to all the arguments, pro and 
con. which had been urged on both sides of the House ; that he 
had himself said much, and thought more on the subject; he saw 
difficulties and objections which might be urged by individual 
States against every scheme which had been proposed; and he 
was now more than ever convinced that the Constitution which 
they were about to form, in order to be just and equal, nmst be 
founded on the basis of compromise and mutual concession. 
With such views and feelings, he would now move a reconside- 
ration of the vote last taken on the organization of the Senate. 
The motion was seconded — the vote carried — the former vote re- 
scinded — and by a successive motion and resolution, the Senate 
was organized on the present plan." 

Substantially the same account is given in Southwick's 
letters on the duty of opening Legislative Assemblies with 
prayer, as is now done in the National Legislature, and I 
believe also generally in the Legislatures of the different 
States. The custom is a testimony to Christianity, which I 
hope will always be retained. But I am sorry to say that 
the incident referred to in the history of the Convention 
cannot be quoted as a precedent. The Observer is de- 
servedly noted for its caution in stating facts. But in this 
instance, its correspondent is under a mistake in one point. 
The narrative must have undergone somewhat of a change 
after it came from General Dayton. The good spirit of the 
communication shows that if the author has been led into 
error, he would be thankful to have it corrected. Truth 
is always the best weapon in vindication of religion ; and 



264 NOTES. 

I will state the facts as authentic records show them to 
have actually occurred. 

"Veritas non verba magister" was Madison's motto, 
and we shall have occasion to refer to him as authority. 
He was a leading member of that memorable Convention, 
and kept a very minute record of all its deliberations and 
proceedings, which is now published in the " Madison Pa- 
pers." He describes the crisis in the Convention on the 
subject of representation in the Senate, to have become 
very alarming, and shows that the impending danger was 
averted by a general spirit of concession and compromise 
on both sides of the question. On these points he fully 
agrees with the correspondent of the Observer. They also 
agree as to the measures proposed by Dr. Franklin for an 
adjournment, and also for the introduction of religious ser- 
vice by a chaplain. But although the Convention agreed 
unanimously to the motion for an adjournment, that time 
might be given for excitement to subside and conflicting 
views to be reconciled ; the motion for inviting a chaplain 
to open the Convention with prayer was not carried. In 
Franklin's works, we have his speech on the subject, to 
which a note is appended by himself, stating that his 
proposition failed ; and in the " Madison Papers " we find 
the history of the whole matter to have been as follows: 

The proceedings referred to were on the 28th June; 
and on that day the determination of the question before 
the Convention "was put off till to-morrow, at the re- 
quest of the Deputies from New-York," when Dr. Frank- 
lin arose, and said: 

" Mr. President, — The small progress we have made after 
four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasonings 
with each other — our different sentiments on almost every ques- 



Notes. 265 

tion, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes — is, 
methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human 
understanding. We, indeed, seem to feel our own want of poli- 
tical wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. 
We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, 
and examined the different forms of those republics which, hav- 
ing been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no 
longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Eu- 
rope, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circum- 
stances. 

" In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in 
the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it 
when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have 
not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father 
of Lights to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning 
of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of dan- 
ger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection. 
Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they wore graciously answered. 
All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed 
frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. 
To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of con- 
sulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national 
felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend 1 Or 
do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance ? I have 
lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing 
proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. 
And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is 
it probable that an empire can rise without his aid ? We have 
been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that ' except the Lord 
build the house, they labor in vain that build it' I firmly believe 
this ; and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall 
succeed in this political building no better than the builders of 
Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests ; 
our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become 
a reproach and by-word down to future ages. And what u 
worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, 
despair of establishing governments by human wisdom, and leave 
it to chance, war, and conquest. 

" I therefore beg leave to move — that, henceforth, prayers im- 
ploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our delibe- 
rations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we pro- 

12 



266 NOTES. 

ceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city 
be requested to officiate in that service." 

Mr. Sherman seconded the motion. 

Mr. Hamilton, and several others, expressed their apprehen- 
sions that, however proper such a resolution might have been at 
the beginning of the Convention, it might at this late day, in the 
first place, bring on it some disagreeable animadversions; and in 
the second, lead the public to believe that the embarrassments 
and dissensions within the Convention had suggested this mea- 
sure. It was answered by Dr. Franklin, Mr. Sherman, and 
others, that the past omission of a duty could not justify a fur- 
ther omission ; that the rejection of such a proposition would ex- 
pose the Convention to more unpleasant animadversions than 
the adoption of it; and that the alarm out of doors that might be 
excited for the state of things within, would at least be as likely 
to do good as ill. 

Mr. Williamson observed, that the true cause of the omission 
could not be mistaken. The Committee had no funds. 

Mr. Randolph proposed, in order to give a favorable aspect to 
the measure, that a seimon be preached at the request of the 
Convention, on the Fourth of July, the anniversary of Independ- 
ence ; and thenceforward, prayers, &c. to be read in the Conven- 
tion every morning. After several unsuccessful attempts for si- 
lently postponing this matter by adjourning, the adjournment 
was at length carried without any vote on the motion." 

From this minute account, the accuracy of which no 
one will question, it will be seen that, although the mo- 
tion was not carried, it was not negatived. The Conven- 
tion disposed of it by adjournment. It will also be seen 
that those who opposed the motion, did not argue against 
the principle of having the Convention opened by prayer. 
They argued from the inexpediency, as they deemed it, of 
introducing religious services at that juncture in the pro- 
ceedings of their body. I regret that they should have 
taken that view of the case. The reply made to their 
objection by Dr. Franklin and others, ought to have sa- 
tisfied them. But still there was nothing in their opposi- 



NOTES. 267 

tion that can be justly termed avowed irreligion or wan- 
ton mockery of the Most High. Had the wise proposition 
been made when the Convention first assembled, in all 
probability it would have been passed unanimously. 

How far the deliberations of the Convention might 
have been aided, had Dr. Franklin's advice been taken, it 
is not for man to say. But admirable as our Federal 
Constitution is, and unwise as it would be to disturb or 
derange its great principles, time has shown that it was 
hot so perfect when first formed as to preclude amend- 
ment. The speeches delivered on its adoption, prove that 
some leading members of the Convention were not en- 
tirely satisfied with it themselves. When Dr. Franklin 
arose to move that it should be signed by the members, 
he said : " I confess that there are several parts of the 
Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I 
am not sure I shall never approve them ; the opinions I 
have had of its errors, 1 sacrifice to the public good. 
Within these walls they were born, and here they shall 
die." His hopes, however, seem to have brightened when 
he saw the general unanimity that prevailed in the Con- 
vention before their final adjournment. Mr, Madison re- 
lates that "while the last members were signing, &c, 
Franklin, looking towards the President's chair, at the 
back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, ob- 
served to a few members near 'him, that painters had 
found it difficult; to distinguish in their art, a rising from 
a setting sun. I have," said he, " often and often, in the 
course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes 
and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the Presi- 
dent, without being able to tell whether it was rising or 
setting; but now, at length, I have the happiness to 



„ 268 NOTES. 

know, it is a rising, and not a setting sun." And the 
sun has been rising ever since. The clouds which at 
times have obscured its face, have neither arrested nor 
delayed its upward course. The nation cannot be too 
thankful to Him "by whom princes decree justice," that 
the great bond of her Union, the Constitution as it now 
stands, has led her to a growth in power and wealth which 
has fully proved its wisdom and excellence ; and if prayer 
was not offered by the Convention who framed it, prayer 
was offered for them, during all their deliberations, by 
thousands of Christians throughout the whole nation. 

Although this note has already reached an unusual 
length, I may perhaps be excused if I extend it still farther. 
There is a deep sentiment of reverence for the fathers 
of the Republic pervading the mind of the nation, which is 
to be counted among the best signs of our times ; and as 
the value of the Union cannot be too strongly urged, espe- 
cially at the present juncture of public affairs, every friend 
of his country will feel an interest in seeing how these vene- 
rable, wise and upright men felt and spoke on the subject 
when it came before them in their deliberations. They were 
statesmen of the right stamp, ornaments, not only of their 
country, but of their age. They possessed enlarged minds, 
capable of appreciating the influence of their deeds on the 
destinies of their own nation and of the world. 

A great object of the Federal Convention, as it is usual- 
ly termed,* was to perpetuate and strengthen an Union of the 
States ; so to combine their resources as to promote nation- 
al prosperity and greatness. The former Confederacy had 
been found entirely inadequate to meet the wants of the 
country ; and as the Convention was called to meet a crisis 
which involved the best interests of the nation, the several 



269 

States showed a studious care to select as their delegates 
men of tried worth and ability. We find upon the roll not 
only Washington, who was unanimously called to preside 
over its deliberations, but also such men as Rutledge and 
the two Pinckneys, (Charles and Char.es Cotesworth,) from 
South Carolina, Randolph and Madison from Virginia, Mar- 
tin and Carroll from Maryland, Franklin with Robert and 
Gouverneur Morris from Pennsylvania, Paterson and Livings- 
ton from New Jersey, Hamilton and Lansing from New- 
York, Sherman and Ellsworth from Connecticut, King and 
Gorham from Massachusetts, with others who had figured 
conspicuously for their statesmanship and patriotism. Re- 
solutions, as the basis of a Constitution, were laid before 
the house by Mr. Randolph; and "the object of the pro- 
per plan," to be considered, was declared by Mr. Madison 
"to be twofold ; — first, to preserve the Union ; secondly, to 
provide a Government that will remedy the evils felt by the 
States both in their united and individual capacities." In the 
progress of the Convention, as already stated, the difficulty, 
of reconciling the conflicting claims of the smaller and larger 
States was found to be almost insurmountable, and on several 
occasions a rupture seemed inevitable. Every thing was seen 
to depend upon a spirit of forbearance and concession ; and 
a dissolution of the Union was deprecated, as an evil to be 
avoided by every sacrifice. 

"Let the union of the States be dissolved," said Mr. Madison, 
"and one of two consequences must happen. Either the States 
must remain individually independent and sovereign; or two or 
more confederacies must be formed among them." * * * * 
"Either event," he afterwards declared, "would be truly deplora- 
ble: and those who might he accessory to either could never be 
forgiven by their country or by themselves " 

In view of such a contingency, Mr. Gorham conceived— 



270 NOTES. 

" That a disruption of the Union would be an event unhappy 
for all ; but surely the large States would be the least unable to 
take care of themselves, and to make connections with one an- 
other. The weak, therefore, were most interested in establishing 
some general system fur maintaining order. If, among individu- 
als composed partly of weak, and partly of strong, the former 
most need the protection of law and government, the case is 
exactly the same with weak and powerful states. * * * * 
On the whole, he comidered a union of the States as necessary 
to their happiness, and a firm General Govern ment as nece?snrv 
to their union. He should consider it his duty, if his colleagues 
viewed the matter in the same light as he did, to stay here as 
long as any other State would remain with them, in order to 
agree on some plan that could, with propriety, be recommended 
to the people." 

Among " the consequences of a dissolution of the Union'' 
Mr. Hamilton predicted, 

"Alliances will immediately be formed with different rival and 
hostile nations of Europe, who will foment disturbances among 
ourselves, and make us parries to all their own quarrels. Foreign 
nations having American dominion are, and must be, jealous of 
us. Their representatives betray the utmost anxiety for our fate T 
and for the result of this meeting, which must have an essential 
influence on it. It had been said, that respectability in the eyes 
of foreign nations was not the object at which we aimed; that 
the proper object of republican government was domestic tran- 
quillity and happiness. This was an ideal distinction. No go- 
vernment could give us tranquillity and happiness at home, which 
did not possess sufficient stability and strength to make us respec- 
table abroad. This was the critical moment for forming such a 
government. We should run every risk in trusting to future 
amendments. As yet we retain the habits of union. We are 
weak, and sensible of our weakness. Henceforward the motives 
will become feebler, and the difficulties greater. It is a miracle 
that we are now here, exercising our tranquil and free deliberations 
on the subject. Tt would be madness to trust to future miracles. 
A thousand causes must obstruct n re-production of them." 

Mr. Gouverneur Morris 

u Wished it to be understood that he came lo the Convention 



NOT 271 

as a representative of America ; he flattered himself he came here, 
in some degree, as a representative of the whole human race; for 
the whole human race wili be affected by the proceedings of this 
Convention. He wished gentlemen to extend their views beyond 
the present moment of time ; beyond the narrow limits of the 
place from which they derive their political origin. If he were to 
believe some things which lie had heard, he should suppose that 
we were assembled to truck and bargain for our particular States. 
He cannot descend to think, that any gentlemen are really ac- 
tuated by these views. We must look forward to the effects of 
what we do. These alone ought to guide us." 

The Constitution having been finally adopted in tlie Fe- 
deral Convention, was yet to be sent down for ratification 
to the several States, with the provision as expressed in 
Article VII, that "the ratification of tbe Conventions of 
nine States should be sufficient for the establishment of tbe 
Constitution between the States, so ratifying the same," State 
Conventions were accordingly brought together to act upon 
the subject. The debates which took place in these several 
bodies, together with other documents of public interest, 
have been collected with much care by Elliott, and publish- 
ed in four volumes. His reports of what occurred in some 
of the Conventions are brief and imperfect, as he had to 
depend chiefly on cotemporary publications. But in other 
cases his account is very full and satisfactory. His report 
of the debates in the Convention of Virginia fills his entire 
third volume. When the question was submitted to that 
body, the decision was admitted to be of paramount im- 
portance, as the Constitution had already been ratified by 
eio^ht different States ; and the ratification bv Virginia would 
be conclusive on its final adoption for the government of the 
nation. The Convention itself was much divided in senti- 
ment. The eloquent Patrick Henry led a powerful opposi- 
tion ; and it was not a little remarkable that the leader on 



272 NOTES. 

the other side was Governor Edmund Randolph, who was 
one of the three that had declined to sign the Constituiion 
when finally adopted in the Federal Convention. Subse- 
quent reflection seems to have satisfied his mind that the 
welfare of the country demanded the ratification of the in- 
strument as it then stood ; and that amendments which he 
and others thought desirable, should be left to be afterwards 
introduced according to the mode prescribed in the Consti- 
tution itself. 

" As with me," he said, " the only question has ever been, 
between previous and subsequent amendments; so will I express 
my apprehensions, that the postponement- of this Convention, to 
so late a day, has extinguished the probability of the former with- 
out inevitable ruin to the Union, and the Union is the anchor of 
our political salvation ; and I will assent, to the lopping of this 
limb (meaning his arm) before I assent to the dissolution of the 
Union." 

In tne progress of the debate we find him on one occa- 
sion declaring, 

" Were I convinced that the accession of eight states did not 
render our accession also necessary to preserve the Union, I 
would not accede to it, till it should be previously amended: but, 
sir, I am convinced that the Union will be lost by our rejection. 
Massachusetts has adopted it ; she has recommended subsequent 
amendments; her influence must be very considerable to obtain 
them. I trust my countrymen have sufficient wisdom and virtue 
to entitle them to equal respect. It is urged, that being wiser we 
ought to prescribe amendments to the other states. I have con- 
sidered this subject deliberately, wearied myself in endeavoring 
to find a possibility of preserving the Union without our uncondi- 
tional ratification ; but, sir, in vain. I find no other means * * * 
I have every reason for determining within myself, that our rejec* 
tion must dissolve the Union ; and that our dissolution w T ould 
destroy our political happiness." 



xotes, 273 

In the course of his arguments he observed, 

"We are now inquiring particularly whether Virginia, as 
contra-distinguished from the other states, can exist without the 
Union. A hard question, perhaps, after what has been said. I 
will venture, however, to say, she cannot. I shall not rest con- 
tented with asserting — T .shall endeavor to prove.*' 

In the conclusion of this powerful speech, he said, 

14 1 shall conclude with a few observations which come from 
my heart. I have labored for the continuance of the Union — the 
rock of our salvation. I believe that, as sure as there is a God 
in Heaven, our safety, our political happiness and existence de- 
pend on <he union of the states ; and that without this union, the 
people of this, and the other states, will undergo the unspeakable 
calamities, which discord, faction, turbulence, war. and bloodshed, 
have produced in other countries. The American spirit ought to 
be mixed with American pride to see the Union magnificently 
triumph. * * * * * Let it not be recorded of Americans that, 
after having performed the most gallant exploits — after having 
overcome the most astonishing difficulties — and after having 
gained the admiration of the world by their uncomparable valor 
and policy, they lost their acquired reputation, their national con- 
sequence and happiness, by their own indiscretion. Let no future 
historian inform posterity that they wanted wisdom and virtue to 
concur in any regular efficient government. Should any writer, 
doomed to so disagreeable a task, feel the indignation of an 
honest historian, lie would reprehend and recriminate our folly, 
with equal severity and justice. Catch the present moment; 
seize it with avidity and eagerness, for it may be lost, never to be 
regained. If the Union be now lost, I fear it will remain so 
for ever." 

While the subject was under discussion, and one gen. 
tleman after another was called out, Mr. Corbin declared, 

" By Union alone can we exist; by no other means can we be 
happy. Union, must be the object of every gentleman here. I 
never yet have heard any gentleman so wild and frantic in his 
opposition as to avow an attachment to partial Confederacies, 



274 NOTES. 

By previous adoption, the Union will be preserved: by insisting 
on alterations, previous to our adoption, the Union may be lost* 
^nd our political happiness destroyed by internal dissensions." 

When the deliberations were drawing towards a con- 
clusion, some gentleman in the opposition having hinted a 
purpose to retire from the Convention, and go home, Go- 
vernor Randolph appealed to them, 

" I beg to make a few remarks on the subject of secession. 
If there be. in tins house, members who have in contemplation to 
secede from the majority, let me conjure them by all the ties of 
honor and duty to consider what they are about to do. * * * * 
Such an idea of refusing to submit to the decision of the majority 
is destructive of every republican principle. It will kindle a 
civil war, and reduce everything to anarchy and confusion/' 

Feeling the responsibility which he had assumed in 
urging the adoption of the Constitution, although ably 
seconded by Madison, Marshall, Nicholas, Pendleton, Corl- 
bin and others ; at the close of the Debate, he pled, 

" Mr. Chairman, one parting word I humbly supplicate: The 
suffrage which I shall give in favor of the Constitution, will be 
Ascribed, by malice, to motives unknown to my breast. * * * 
Lest, however, some future annalist should, in the spirit of party 
vengeance, deign to mention my name, let him recite these truths 
— thai I went to the Federal Contention with the strongest affec- 
tion for the Union ; that I acted there in full conformity with 
this affection ; that I refused to subscribe, because I had. as I still 
have, objections to the Constitution, and wished a free inquiry into 
its merits; and that the accession of eight states reduced our deli- 
berations to the single question of Union, or no Unions 

Although the Reports of the proceedings and debates 
in the other Conventions are, as we have said, comparatively 
brief, yet they are sufficient to show that the attachment to 
the Union, so triumphant in Virgina, was also the predomi- 
nant feeling in the other States, and especially the States in 



NOTES, 275 

the South. In the Convention of North Carolina, Mr. Iredell 
was a leading man. He urged the ratification of the Con 
stitution, arguing, 

* By adopting it we shall be in the Union with our sister 
btates, which is the onlv foundation of our prosperity and safety. 
We shall avoid the danger of a separation, a danger of which the 
latent effects are unknown. So far am I convinced of the neces- 
sity of the Union, that I would give up many things against my 
own opinion to obtain it. If we sacrificed it by a rejection of the 
Constitution, or a refusal to adopt, (which amounts, I think, near- 
ly to the same thing,) the very circumstance of disunion may 
occasion animosity between us and the inhabitants of the other 
states, which may be the means of severing us for ever.' 5 

In the Legislature of South Carolina, the proposition 
to call a State Convention was warmly opposed by Mr. 
Lowndes, and some others ; but it was supported by the 
Rutledges, the Pinckaeys, and such men as Pringle, Ma- 
thews, Barnwell Head and Ramsay. During the discus- 
sion Mr. Charles Cotes worth Pinckney said, 

* Without union with the other states, South Carolina must 
soon fall. Is there any one among us so much a Quixote as to 
suppose that this State could long maintain her independence, if 
she stood alone, or was only connected with the Southern States? 
I scarcely believe there is." 

Having afterwards referred to the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence with high encomium, he proceeded, 

"In that Declaration the several states are not even enume- 
rated ; but after reciting in nervous language and with convincing 
arguments, our right to independence, and the tyranny which com- 
pelled us to assert it, the Declaration is made in the following 
words: — 'We, therefore, the representatives of the United States 
of America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to the 
Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, 
do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these 
# colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies 



276 NOTES. 

are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States/ 
The separate independence and individual sovereignty of the seve- 
ral states were never thought of by the enlightened band of 
patriots who framed this declaration; the several states are not 
even mentioned by name in any part of it, as if it was intended to 
impress this maxim on America, that our freedom and indepen- 
dence arose from our union, and that without it we could neither 
be free nor independent. Let us then consider all attempts to 
weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately 
and individually independent, as a species of political heresy 
which can never benefit us, but may bring on the most serious 
distresses." 

The Convention having betm called ; on the second day 
after it met, Mr. Charles Pinckney delivered a speech of 
great power and eloquence, which seems indeed to have pre- 
cluded any considerable debate during the subsequent deli- 
berations. Alluding to some of the leading features of the 
Constitution, he said, 

"In their individual capacities as citizens, the people are pro- 
portionally represented in the House of Representatives ; here, 
they who are to pay to support the expenses of government, have 
the purse-strings in their hands ; here the people hold and feel 
that they possess an influence sufficiently powerful to prevent 
every undue attempt of the other branches, to maintain that 
weight in the political scale which, as the source of all authority, 
they should ever possess: here, too, the states, whose existence 
as such we have often heard predicted as precarious, will find 
in the Senate the guards of their rights as political associations. 

" On them. (I mean the state systems.) rests the general fabric : 
on their foundation is this magnificent structure of freedom erect- 
ed, each depending upon, supporting, and protecting the other; 
nor, so intimate is the connexion, can the one be removed without 
prostrating the other in ruin : like the head and the body, separate 
them and they die. 

" far be it from me to suppose that such an attempt should 
ever be made. The good sense and virtue of our country forbid 
the idea: to the Union we will look up, as to the temple of our- 



NOTES. 277 

freedom — a temple founded in the affections, and supported by 
virtue of the people ; here we will pour out our gratitude to the 
Author of all good, for suffering us to participate in the rights of 
a people who govern themselves. 

" Is there, at this moment, a nation upon earth that enjoys this 
right, where the true principles of representation are understood 
and practised, and where all authority flows from, and returns at 
stated periods to the people? I answer, there is not. Can a 
government be said to be free where these rights do not exist ? 
It cannot. On what depends the enjoyment of these rare, these 
inestimable privileges? On the firmness, on the power of the 
Union to protect and defend them. 

"How grateful, then, should we be, that, at this important 
period — a period important, not to us alone, but to the general 
rights of mankind — so much harmony and concession should 
prevail through the states — that the public opinion should be so 
much actuated by candor and an attention to their general inte- 
rests — that disdaining to be governed by the narrow motives of 
state policy, they have liberally determined to dedicate a part of 
their advantages to the support of that government, from which 
they received them. To fraud, to force, or accident, all the go- 
vernments we know have owed their births. To the philosophic 
mind, how new and awful an instance do the United States, at 
present, exhibit in the political world ! They exhibit, sir, the first 
instance of a people, who. being dissatisfied with their govern- 
ment — : unattaeked by foreign force, and undisturbed by domestic 
uneasiness — coolly and deliberately resort to the virtue and good 
sense of their country for a correction of their public errors. 

"It must be obvious, that without a superintending govern- 
ment, it is impossible the liberties of this country can long be 
secured. 

" Single and unconnected, how weak and contemptible are the 
largest of our states ! how unable to protect themselves from 
internal or domestic insult ! how incompetent to national pur- 
poses would even partial union be ! how liable to intestine wars 
and confusion ! how little able to secure the blessings of peace ? 

" Let us, therefore, be careful in strengthening the Union — let 
us remember that we are bounded by vigilant and attentive neigh- 
bors, who view with jealous eye our rise to empire." 

These were the deliberate and enlightened views of the 



278 NOTES. 

sages and patriots who laid the foundations of our national 
greatness. Being* dead, they } r et speak. Their sepulchres 
are with us to this day ; and in all periods of agitation 
which put in jeopardy the Institutions they framed for us, 
we should reverence their memories, and seek counsel from 
their wisdom. Especially should we turn to Him with a 
filial regard whom we all delight to honour as " First in 
war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 
men," and who has left us this memorable warning in his 
Farewell Address : 

;t It is of infinite moment that you should properly esti- 
mate the immense value of your national union to your 
collective and individual happiness ; that you should cherish 
a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accus- 
toming yourselves to think and speak of it as the palladium 
of your political safety and prosperity ; watching for its 
preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing what- 
ever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, 
he abandoned ; and indignantly frowning upon the first, 
dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of ovr 
country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which ~>oi2 
link together the various parts." 



END OF NOTES. 



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